Document KG3JB9vYnMDVrK0LedoxOzZeK

March 25, 1987--Vol. 140, No. 11 companies 24 Chemicals are back on center stage at Carbide In the wake of Union Carbide's massive restructuring, the Chemicals and Plastics Group, with operating income of $472 million in 1986, emerged at the core of the corporation. "Boy, is that different from being a stepchild," says H. William Lichtenberger, the group's president. Despite the rush by many chemical producers into specialties, Carbide still expects big things of the 63% of the Chemicals and Plastics portfolio made up of commodities. But Lichtenberger's strategy also stresses new business probes, which could lead to joint ventures. cover: Chemical Week Art Dept. viewpoint 3 If things are better, why call them worse? weekly price index 13 economic trends 18 Monthly production report 6 Chemical prices: Some are in orbit, others grounded Prices for benzene, styrene, phenol and derivatives are skyrocketing 7 Hoechst Celanese's three big projects Plans for expansion in acrylic acid, superabsorbent polymers and APAP 10 Test-data sharing goes global OECD will set up an information exchange; industry will pick up the tab 11 EPA is under fire over PCB dumping According to a Senate subcommittee, the agency is "asleep at the wheel" 11 Upjohn offers hope for those balding blues FDA advisers nod approval for the company's hair-raising minoxidil drug 13 Cleaning up groundwater Dow adds its engineering expertise to a groundwater cleanup venture 16 A chance for a little auto acquisition action Chemical suppliers see new opportunities in the Chrysler-AMC merger 17 wrap-up: Ausimont Compo hikes its dividend rate. Pennwalt buys back stock. A Florida phosphate suit. Papermaker's awards. A research grant 22 engineering Bridge building in the Kanawha Valley NJCS asseses its role as an information broker for industry and the public 28 environment A legal hitch may muddy the waters in Kalamazoo Questions about CWA guidelines threaten the city's waste-treatment plant 30 research Tough cements take on the market Oxychem's chemically bonded ceramics offer high strength and flexibility 34 finance A big reception for four new chemical stocks Aristech, Georgia Gulf, Vista and Himont are a smash hit on Wall Street 36 energy The predicted octane crunch: `A big nonevent' The much-touted shortages and soaring aromatics prices never developed Chemical Week, Copyright 1387 by McGraw-Hill Inc., ISSN 0009-272X (including Chemical Specialties and Chemical Indus tries), is published weekly, except for one issue in De cember. Subscription rates: U.S. and possessions, 47 per year for those in the primary industries served, others, $49; single copies, $6.00; Canada, $CDN 66 per year (or $CDN 68); elsewhere, upon request. Execu tive, Editorial, Circulation and Advertising Offices: 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices. Postage paid at Montreal, P.Q., registration No. 9443. Title registered in U.S. Pat ent Office. Postmaster: Send address changes to Ful fillment Manager, Chemical Week, P.O. Box 1074, Southeastern, PA. 19398. To telephone, call collect 215 630-9286 from anywhere in the U. S. except Alaska and Hawaii. 5 business: Coming in Japan: Butane to maleic to "acetylenics." A Wall Street accolade for Carbide. It's NL Chemicals vs. United Catalysts 19 technology: DOE offers spill testing for hazardous fluids. FDA approves a drug for AIDS patients. Better cows through bovine hormone trials? 31 markets: Loss of tariff protection sparks concern in Mexico. Hercules starts up an aliphatic resins plant. L'Air Liquide will market arsine 35 international: Bayer will build two plastics plants at Antwerp. BP Chemie plans a unit in France. Two Mitsubishi companies post a drop in sales 40 Washington: The aborted Fujitsu deal may be Chapter One. OSHA's new line toward chemical makers. The House may toughen up a trade bill been dispelled, since even smaller chem ical-producing countries, where govern ments will have to bear a larger part of the testing burden, have backed the issue. The first steps toward a cooperative effort will be taken in September, at a meeting to be held in Ottawa. There, OECD members will compare existing chemical testing programs and begin to identify possible cooperative activities. Much in evidence at the Paris meet ing were the political reverberations from incidents last November, when substances from chemical industry sites caused extensive pollution of the Rhine River. Pressed by the governments of West Germany, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands--the Rhine-bordering countries where the pollution had the greatest impact in terms of damage to property and public opinion--OECD also agreed to set up a special highpriority program on chemical accidents. Guidelines. That program will develop guidelines to prevent major releases of hazardous substances into the environ ment, identify priority chemicals and processes that should be the focus of international cooperative efforts, and arrange for exchange of information previously gained by government and industry in dealing with accidents. EPA's Thomas says the program will allow OECD to identify a list of interna tional experts any member nation could call upon in the event of an accident. A high-level OECD meeting on haz ardous releases is set for early 1988, and additional funding will be made available for the group to carry out the work, reflecting the "urgency we all at tach to this new initiative," says Ed Nijpels, Dutch Minister for Housing, Physical Planning and Environment. DAVID HUNTER Paris, with Paula M. Block EPA is under fire over PCB dumping There is a new scandal brewing in Washington. It involves the Environ mental Pi*otection Agency's (EPA) han dling of information that scores of un lined earthen pits along 270,000 miles of interstate natural gas pipelines are con taminated by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). `' * Task force. First reports of the con tamination appeared in mid-February, when newspapers reported that Texas Eastern Gas Pipeline (Houston), which operates a 9,635-mile pipeline system through 16 states from Texas to New York City, had dumped PCB-contaminat ed liquids at 62 sites in 13 states. On Feb. 25, EPA assembled a task force to reviewr PCB problems along all U. S. pipeline systems, and by Mar. 11, the agency had identified five more inter state pipeline companies that admitted to similar dumping of PCBs. At a March 17 hearing on the subject, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), charged that EPA had been dragging its feet about notifying the public of the problems that the pipleline companies had run into. Lautenberg, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on Superfund and environmental oversight said at the hearing that "EPA knew7 PCB dumping w'as going on for some time, and the agency did nothing to inform the pub lic." He says that EPA w'as awrare of the Texas Eastern contamination since at least August 1985 but did little about it. Said Lautenberg: "We see EPA asleep at the wheel and in disarray." `Judgment call.' The agency's decision not to alert the public "perhaps was WTong," concedes Thomas L. Adams, Jr., EPA assistant administrator in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring, and he concedes that EPA should have moved more quickly. At the same time, he defends the agency's ac tions as a "judgment call" that was based on lack of hard information that the pits posed a danger to human health. The data EPA needed to assess the situation, says Adams, did not come un til last December when Roy F. Weston (West Chester, Pa.), a Texas Eastern contractor, finished testing samples in 10 contaminated pits. Weston's prelimi nary report shows that maximum con centrations of PCBs at 8 of the 10 sites ranged from 130 parts per million (ppm) to 10,000 ppm. Regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) re quire that liquids containing more than 50 ppm PCBs be disposed of only at facilities with permits under the Re source Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). ` For its part, Texas Eastern admits dumping the PCB-contaminated liquid, says Howard C. Homeyer, the compa ny's president. He explains that in 1972, Texas Eastern signed a consent agree ment with EPA requiring clean up of the system writh the PCB-contaminated liquid, which was contained in lubricat ing oil used by the company since 1958 at compressor stations along the pipe line. But Homeyer also says that Texas Eastern continued dumping contaminat ed liquids into pits until 1975, wdien it Lautenberg: "We see ERA asleep at the wheel." began to install diffuser systems to re place the earthen pits. And the company continued to use PCBs in its pipeline system until 1977, although Monsanto, in 1972, advised that it would no longer sell PCBs because of their threat to hu man health and the environment. Since 1972, says Homeyer, the compa ny has spent $20 million to remove PCB contamination from its pipeline system. At the Mar. 17 hearing, Homeyer testi fied that Texas Eastern is committed to cleaning up the pipeline system even further and will excavate contaminated soils until PCB contamination is reduced to acceptable levels. Adams said that EPA is negotiating with Texas Eastern to clean up all con taminated sites under the authority of TSCA, the Superfund lawr and RCRA. The agency is continuing its investiga tions of the five other pipeline compa nies that had admitted similar dumping. But the problem may not end even if all those companies are brought into com pliance. For Adams says that he "can not rule out the possibility" that similar dumping may have taken place along the nation's 1-million-mile netw'ork of in trastate pipelines, as well. CONRAD MacKERRON in Washington, with Laurie A. Rich Upjohn offers hope for those balding blues Some hair-raising newrs for U. S. baldies last week could spell profit-raising news for Upjohn. An advisory committee to the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unanimously recommended ap proval of Upjohn's minoxidil prepara tion to treat male pattern baldness. Despite some caveats from the fivemember panel of outside specialists, FDA is expected to approve the exter nally applied lotion--brandnamed Ro- March 25, 1987/Chemical Week 11