Document XMRw3NvMxw14onbw2KB604q4

I i Industry / Business Plastics growth seen continuing through 1980 Demand for most resins Richardson, Inc., an Enfield, Conn., prices, will mean an end to the un market research firm. Last year, sales satisfactorily low return on investment will rise little increased by 14%, to exceed the indus that has discouraged new investment try's midyear capacity, as producers by PVC producers. "We do not expect this year, but likely drew upon their inventories. But Mr. --any overcapacity in this industry," he will expand faster Childs thmltg the market could have -asserts, "and, therefore, the price comgrown by 25% in 1973 and would grow jNpetitiveness of tbe.late 1960's and early during rest of 1970?s `by a like amount again this year "had 1970's will not come to bear as much." supplies been available." Mr. Disch sees other changes taking Similarly, demand for polypropylene place in the PVC industry, also. The this year will total 2.31 billion pounds, industry will hwnmi more oriented 167th Nations only a 4% increase from last year, ac toward rifid products, for one thing, as cording to Robert W. Unterreiner of construction markets, already the lead- ACS Meeting Amoco Chemicals, with growth "ham ing outlet, become even more domi pered by capacity restraints- and a nant. Plants with large-scale reactors temporary slowdown in several market Market demand for the major plastics -segments." Demand had been up about will continue to grow rapidly. But it 30% in both the two previous years. will be growth under markedly differ* Hie market for polyurethane foams ant conditions than the U.S. plastics also will expand considerably more US. polypropylene markets are dominated try molding and fiber industry witnessed during the past slowly this year and next, says Carl A. decade or so. Growth, for one thing, Steinbaum of Chem Systems, "as a re MIIIImi of pounds 1173 - 1*74 1*71 will be constrained by feedstock short sult of the severe feedstock shortages ages and the availability of plant ca and shifting economic activity." Com pacity during the rest of the 1970's. pared to a compound annual rate of Prices probably will be on an uptrend. growth of about 20% since 1965, con- In general, the current sellers*-market srsumptioo of foams will be up only 8% wflf remain much more in evidence vthis year (to 1.54 billion pounds) and than was the case previously. And a ^an additional 11% next year (to more considerable new investment in plants ' than 1.7 billion pounds), Mr. Stein- Injection molding Fiber Film Other extrusions Total domestic Exports TOTAL DEMAND MO 920 1365 615 660 1125 125 130 200 -225 305 720 TS05 2015 3410 315 V-^295 270 22211 '2310 3610 will be needed. baum estimates. And polyester resins These are some of the conclusions also will experience a flat year, after Source; Amoco Chemicals that can be drawn from forecasts pre registering a 17% growth in consump sented at the Division of. Chemical tion to about 1.1 billion pounds in Marketing and Economics' symposium 1973, Marshall M. Levy of PPG Indus nous inroads in o ms rkerc served bv on plastics--raw materials to end mar tries forecasts. SBoaiueacioriacmties^^.^ kets. Most speakers at the symposium The current market constraints are More anO more small plants, too, were pretty much in agreement that likely to be alleviated in the longer will become captive producers if they the upheavals stemming from the ener run, however, the speakers at toe aren't forced to shut down, Mr. Disch gy crisis of the past year, coupled with CM&E Division's symposium believe. believes, while at the same time pro the lessons learned from a long period Nevertheless, several of them project ducers of rigid PVC products will be -of excess capacity and low return on - somewhat slower growth for some of building large new plants to meet their investment earlier, are remolding tra ' toe major resins during toe latter part own needs. One result will be that the ditional patterns of competition and of the 1970's than in the past. Tenneco industry will become much more con end uses for the plastics industry. Chemicals* Disch, for example, pro solidated, but also it will be one "more The most immediate impact is slow jects the market for PVC resins to hit able to respond to problems and one er current growth in consumption of between 6.3 billion and 6.8 billion making sufficient profits that it can many major resins. Giles E. Disch of pounds a year sometime during the expand and do the job that is necessary Tenneco Chemicals, for example, esti 1978-80 period. That's a growth rate of in the 1970's and 1980's." mates that demand for polyvinyl chlo about 6 to 7% a year, compared with a About 1 billion pounds of new annu ride wQl total about 4.8 billion pounds rate of slightly more than 10% a year al capacity will have to be added to the this year, up only 2% from 1973* 4.7 during the early part of the current -billion pounds that the nine U.S. poly billion pounds. MWe Mitered 1973 with decade. propylene producers have available this a sold-out industry and no new capaci But Mr. Disch warns that consump year, Amoco Chemicals' Unterreiner ty available until late 1974 or early tion can reach the upper part of his notes, if the industry is to meet 1978 1973," he points out. Raw material projected range only if considerably in- domestic demand, which he projects at shortages and plant breakdowns as aeased capacity and more raw materi 3.4 billion pounds. He figures that vinyl chloride and resin producers als become available. He figures the probably at least two new producers "pushed tbeir facilities to the limit" industry will have to add at least 1.3 will enter the U.S. market by then, have added to the problem. billion pounds of new capacity to its adding a total of about 400 million Consumption of styrene polymers - - current total of about 6.2 billion pounds pounds of capacity. and copolymers probably will not quite a year by the end of the decade. Mr. Unterreiner estimates that poly match 1973s level of 5.31 billion Mr. Disch is hopeful, however, that a propylene consumption between 1973 pounds, according to Edmund S. return to a better balance between and 1978 will grow by about 12% a Childs, vice president of DeBeU & supply and demand, and a rise in resin year, as against a 34%-a-year annual URL 20319 .* been production problems with Rio ries, the cumber depending on Blanco. No additional stimulation availability of new drugs ready for tests have been planned. toxicology testing. The network will Meantime, government efforts on be able to test at least 10 drugs at a chemical fracturing technology ap time for toxicity and side effects. pear more or less in limbo. GAO Both contracts are of the cost aays that the Interior Department plus award-fee type, in which the spent about $380,000 on chemical actual fee awarded will depend on fracturing between fiscal years 1968 excellence of performance. The and 1973 before, in effect, abandon Battelle contract, for example, in ing efforts to private industry. cludes a two-year fee of $65,592 and Until fiscal 1974, no federal funds an award fee that could reach a had been spent on massive hydrau total of $149,004 over the two-year lic fracturing. AEC and Interior's contract period. ^ Bureau of Mines have more than $1.2 million that could be used for .hydraulic fracturing development. fbf mice, man, and in fiscal 1974. And Interior has more than $1 million budgeted for this vinyl chloride technique in fiscal 1975. Mice--like rats and, in all likeli hood, man---develop liver angiosar comas from vinyl chloride exposure. NCI's cancer testing management shifted "Very preliminary" work on mice fry Industrial Bio-Test Laborato ries, Northbrook, HI., for the Man ufacturing Chemists Association Two major prime contracts have "tends to confirm the findings" of been awarded by the National Can Prof. Cesare Maltoni, the trade cer Institute as it shifts the man group said last week. Prof. Mal agement of more erf its program to toni, of Istituto Di Oncologia, outside contractors. Bologna, Italy, found liver cancer Late last week, NCI awarded a in rats from vinyl chloride ex $6.6 million, 15-month contract to posure. Tracor Jitco, Inc.,~to manage the After only seven months' expo NCI testing program to identify sure at levels of 2500 p.p.m., 200 cancer-causing chemicals and phys p.p.m., and 50 p.p.m. vinyl chlo ical agents ui the environment. ride in air, Bio-Test found angio Earlier in the week, a nearly $3.8 sarcomas in mice at all levels, but million, two-year contract went to not in rats or hamsters. Such tumor Battelle Memorial Institute's Co development in mice is considered lumbus Laboratories for manage to be fairly rapid. The lack of rat ment of NCI's toxicology program tumors so far is also consistent with for evaluating the safety and side Prof. Maltoni's data. effects of potential new anticancer The death toll of workers in the drugs. U.S. and abroad due to contact Through bioassay contracts with with the chemical, meanwhile, is 17 university and commercial labo mounting. Firestone said last week ratories, NCI has studies under way that the death in 1969 of a worker on the effects of some 450 chemicals at its Pottstown, Pa., polyvinyl as well as ultraviolet radiation. Be chloride plant "appears to have ginning May 1, Tracor Jitco, Rock been related to angiosarcoma." ville, Md., will start assuming C&EN also has learned that Nor prime responsibility for the con way's Cancer Registry now con tracts now in effect with commer firms that a Norsk Hydro PVC cial laboratories at a rate of about worker died in 1971 from the liver one a month. As the NCI contracts cancer. And there are two suspect expire the company will negotiate ed deaths from the disease among each of them as a subcontract. Al Swedish workers. Confirmed ana though NCI will retain scientific suspected cases of the cancer, at control of the program, Tracor this writing, total 16. Jitco will direct and monitor all as The Occupational Safety and pects of the bioassays, including ex Health Administration, meanwhile, perimental design, planning of re has judged measures to control ex sources (materials, animals, labora posures to the carcinogen "inade tory facilities), conduct of studies, quate" at five vinyl chloride and data collection, and analysis and two PVC plants visited in the New presentation of results. Orieans-Baton Rouge, La., area in Under the other contract, Bat- a March 1974 survey report ob telle-Columbus, managing NCI's tained by C&EN. Without asso toxicology program from its office ciating firms with specific criti in McLean, Va., will establish a cisms, OSHA officials found a network of subcontracting laborato "general lack of concern for em ployee health" and that actual ex posures are generally unknown at the five plants. For these five plants "most safety rules are de signed to prevent fires and prevent product loss." And for all plants OSHA finds that "preventative maintenance seems nonexistent." Price decontrols may hike chemicals supply The lapsing of federal price con trols probably will produce in creased supplies of chemical prod ucts in the U.S. So says an over whelming majority of members responding to a recent poll on the effects of price decontrol by the Na tional Association of Chemical Dis tributors, a Dayton, Ohio-based or ganization of about 100 small, re gional chemical distributors. The survey showed less unanimity on just when the chemi cal supply situation might improve, but the typical opinion was that it would be within about six months. One pessimistic respondent, how ever, believes that the recovery will take anywhere from tjvo to five years, depending largely on the availability of construction materi als, equipment, and capital. Almost all NACD members polled agree that the tendency for chemical users to barter and swap products in short supply has af fected their business, with nearly half finding that the practice af fects the market "very much." One distributor points out that it has distorted knowledge of consump tion, for example. However, only two of the 35 respondents admit to having actually engaged in bar tering, They agree unanimously, though, that legislation to prevent bartering and swapping of chemi cals will be unnecessary after price controls expire; On the other hand, they are about equally divided on whether bartering will continue when controls end. By about 5 to 1, NACD members believe that more of the products they sell will remain in the U.S. once price controls are lifted. About half of those surveyed say that an average of 30% of the products they deal in have been diverted to higher-profit overseas markets, in amounts up to 80%. NACD members generally agree that over the long term (1975 and 1976), price decontrol will increase the availability of chemical materi als and restore a balance in the market. They also think decontrol will result in Increased production. URL 20320