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>w Upheld ourger added that laws aimed at arding trade secrets "encourage -velopment and exploitation of terns of lesser or different invenan might be accorded protection the patent laws, but which items ive an important part to play in hnological and scientific advance>f the nation." the initial district court suit, Kewasked damages and an injunction st its former employees, alleging secrets such as chemical com formulas, manufacturing proce- and even customer lists of the any were used in organizing Bicron 9 for the purpose of competing with naw in the production of the syntheystals. e Ohio appeals court reasoned that ate could not grant "monopoly pron" to processes and manufacturing iques that were patentable at one but were no longer patentable bethey had been in commercial use le year. 1 Scheme y's Sobering producer of West Germany, has . scheme to meet the oil shortage alcohols from coal. The Schering 1 prices, it would be uneconomic to during the war), it might be feasito produce chemicals, he government has been asked to put ome of the money for a pilot plant, cost110 million German marks, aimed at erting between 20,000 tons and 50,000 of coal a year. US INCREASE WEIGHED he German company is also considg boosting its investments in the US due hifts in the value of the DM, which -ed a loss of earnings irom overseas ucipaticu. hese changes have reportedly made the ,ries of US pharmacologists more attive to Schering. and this, with the high degree of self - sufficiency in raw mulcs, is prompting the iioai :i tJ look more Continued on Page 43 V 'J> i 8 * V CarinaSt 4W W i i I I'hc Federal Energy Office will hold .rings on May 2S and 29 in Washing- on the allocation ol petroleum toek.s to synthetic natural gas .itties. .n amending its regulations on May 1, to unic effective June 1. KF.O mdic aled its -ion to subject Svnthetie Natural Gas lisiocks to alioea! i.iti re.'ulalinns. They not now covered. COATING S PLASTIC MATERIALS Toxicity Debate Escalates; PVC 0/1 en See OSHA Threat The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's proposed permanent standard for levels of vinyl chloride gas in work environments, and its as sociated medical and supervisory pro cedures, has made the issue of VC tox icity the first concern of the PVC in dustry, according to some sources in that industry. The proposal, and its po tential impact if formally adopted, has, these sources say, superceded feedstock shortages as the most worri some challenge faced by the industry. OSHA's action reflects only one aspect of the current government inquiry into the health threat posed by VC, other research is being conducted by FDA and EPA, but the proposed standard represents the first significant move toward regulation of the chemical intermediate and has thereby magnified and focused the toxicity issue. Although the proposed regulations apply to "any area or operation in which vinyl chloride is manufactured, reacted, re leased, repackaged, stored, or used," it is in polymerization facilities where environ mental levels of the gas are highest and where the impact of the standard would be greatest. But PVC is also the heart of VC use, consuming virtually all that is pro duced and in turn supplying one of the broadest, strongest, and most economical end-use markets in the entire plastics in dustry. Thus the impact there will be felt with virtually equal force both up and downstream. The key sentence in the proposed rules is this: "The proposed standard for em ployee exposure is set at no detectable level, as determined by a sampling and an alytical method capable of detecting vinyl chloride at concentrations of 1 ppm with an accuracy of lppm plus 50 percent." This su percedes a level of 500 ppm, in effect up until April of this year when an emergency temporary standard of 50 ppm was put into effect. The Society of the Plastics Industry promptly responded by calling the standard "excessively and unrealistically restric tive." In a statement issued within hours of the proposal, on May 10. SPI said that adop tion of the standard "would make it virtual ly impossible for plants to operate." Spokesmen for a number of PVC producers backed-up SPI's assessment. One said "nobody can operate at that Continued on Page 22 1 American Smelting & Refining Company expects to proceed with plans for a 180.000 - ton electrolytic zinc facility to be sited in Kentucky. The project, involving investment of about $150 million, has been compli cated by the energy shortage and con straints placed on new power con struction due to the government's air pollution regulations, as well as by the US duty on zinc concentrates. The plant requires a dependable, eomi'vfiuve source of power beiore it can be sited. Also, i; would depend on imports for a little more than 59 percent of its raw ma terial requirements. A Us duty of o ,;7 cents per pound oi con!;.mud zinc wnuici be sus pended by a bid now in Congress. A company spokesman says new domes tic capacity is urgently reeded and esti mates the US has lost 5o percent of its zinc Continued on Page 24 -s \ \ ;j ................. ... i .M BECHTEL OFFICIAL: nooert K. Gould. who has been elected a vice-president c. I2e- chtel. Inc. He will continue as manager of Eschlel's Refinery & Chemical Division. Texasgulf Halts Project At Kidd Creek Texasgulf. Inc., has shelved its plan to increase ore production at the Kidd Creek Mine because o! uncertainty over Ontario provincial and Canadian signed to increase ore production from 3.(1 to 5 million tons per year at a cost of some $93 million. Texasgulf announced at its annual share- BFG24829 23317001 C0A1INU a f'LASm, MAItMIALa Toxicity Debate Continued Irom Page s level." another said, "the disruptions would be enormous." others said we'd have to design new plants," "it would shut us down," "you could close the industry down because nobody could operate," "the economic impact would be enormous," and "no expo sure would mean no industry." Some others were more reserved. "I don't say it can't be done," one informed source at a large producer said, "but it would be very difficult and expensive. We're quite concerned, but it's part of the cost of doing business." Goodrich, the major producer of PVC in the world, said in a formal statement that "the 'no detectable level' clause is imprac tical and not justified." but added that "it intends to continue to operate its plants and meet any reasonable standard." Many pro ducers expressed confidence that the final standard adopted would be above that pro posed. Maurice Johnson. M.D.. chief medi cal officer at Goodrich, said last week that Goodrich is currently operating with a work-place environmental level of about 15 ppm at most of its plants. However, other smaller manufacturers claim they have spent "hundreds of thou sands of dollars" just to get beneath the 50 ppm emergency standard, and added that 25-30 ppm would be as low as they could go in the near future. Summing up the indus try concern, one informed source said "the question now is `How do you stay alive?' per pound. BON reds went up by 40c. to a range of. generally. $3.00-13 45 per pound. Diarylide yellows increased ?0-?5c. to $3.50-$3.75 per pound. Hansa yellow went up 20c. to $3.10 per pound. Benzidine orange rose by 40c. to $4.80 per pound. Naphthol reds went up 90c-$1.40 to a range of $4.90-$6.50. And quinacridone red increased by $1.00 to $17.00 per pound. Terms and conditions of sale are un changed. , ANTIMONY OXIDE-Harshaw Chemi cal increased prices on antimony oxide last week, effective May 17, but not to the level set by other manufacturers earlier this month. Standard grade was increased by 194c. per pound to $1.44 per pound. M&T and NL Industries had earlier raised prices by 364c. to $1.61 per pound. A spokesman for Harshaw said the com- fHEWeEKg^ICBfcHANGE^H Ending May 17, 1974 ADVANCED Men. Moo* REDUCED COMPARATIVE PRICE INDEXES (100-Averse) Last Prev. Last May 18 Week Week Month 1973 118.76 11676 11874 116.52 For Currant Pricaa Saa Paga 30 L. rl N GS^ARW<EGOAD20 from MATHE'S New "COAD" Process If you haven't tried it, you should. MATHE DIVISION of the Norac Co., Inc. Iti Kennedy 0r~ Lodi, N. J. ______ __________ ________ _________ HALMi. 1 " I W mun Sidney Wolff, M.D.. Director of Health Research Group which has been instrumen tal in pushing government recognition of VC toxicity, has complained that the pro posed standard is "too high." He argues that while it "goes in the right direction" and that the non-detectable performance level is proper, the wording of the proposal in effect establishes a threshhold level of 1 ppm. He adds that there is "no evidence that any carcinogen is safe at any level." OSHA. he believes, should insist that nondetectable means on instruments of any sensitivity, available now or available in the future. This he says was the intent of NIOSH's recommendations, as well as those of. OSHA's own Carcinogen Advisory Committee when it suggested a level of no exposure in January with regard to 14 other suspect-carcinogens that it was convened to study. Bert Cottine. a staff legal associate at HRC, says that industry always complains it will be put out of business when faced with safety regulations. He suggests that they provide evidence to back-up their claim, that the emphasis be on technical feasibility rather than just economic feasi bility. and that each company case be ha ndled individually, with individual evidenti ary hearings on hardship, and individual rulings on performance and deadline deferrmenls. The Organization of Plastic Processors, a Washington group representing plastics fabricators and end-users, had no immedi ate comment on the OSHA proposal but act ing director Michael Lang said that the ex ecutive committee had been convened to study the development and establish forma) policy toward it., A source close to the croup, however, said the OSHA move "is not going to be helpful. It is going to disrupt supplies even further." Then he yielded to the fact: "There is certainly a health prob lem." PRIME PIGMENTS American Cyanamid raised prices on many of its drganic and inorganic pigment colors last week, effective May 15. Chrome greens rose 4-?c. to a range of 78-84c. per pound. Chrome yellows increased by 3c. to 59c. per pound, and molybdate orange went up by 5c. to 79c. per pound. Among the organics, phthalocyanine greens rose 35-65c. to a range of I5.15-S5.65 per pound. Phthalo blues increased by 5075c to a range of $4.20-14.75 (most at $4 45> said. "We hope to stabilize it. We don't want a repeat of 1970," he added, when a number of customers were driven away by rapidly rising prices. CADMIUM PIGMENTS- Effective May 15. Hercules increased the price of its cad mium and "Mercadium" pigments. Cadmi um yellow lithopone was increased 22c. to $2.56 per pound. Cadmium yellow concen trates rose by 53c. to $6.04 per pound. Cad mium orange lithopone was increased 30c.-34c. to $3.2543.59 per pound. Cadmium orange concentrates rose 75c.-67c. to $8.16-$9.03 per pound. Cadmium reds rose 38c.-59c. to $4.16-$5.31 per pound. And cad mium red concentrates increased $1.02-$1.38 to $9.76-$12.32 per pound. RED LEAD-NL Industries increased litharge and red lead priees last week, ef fective May 15, by $1.50-12.00 cwt. Standard litharge is now priced at $27.25 cwt. 97% red lead is now priced at $28.50 and 96% red lead is now priced at $29.00 cwt. Prices are for truckload quantities. TITANIUM DIOXIDE-Effective May 15, DuPont increased the price of standard grade anatase and rutile titanium dioxide by 3c. per pound. Both anatase and rutile are now priced at the general industry fig ure of 35c. per pound. Paper grade anatase was increased 2c. to 32c. per pound. LOW-DENSITY POLYETHYLENE Effective June 1. Dow will increase its L-DPE prices at about 3c. per pound gener ally. Film liner will then be priced at 20c. per pound, clarity at 22c. per pound, extru sion coating at 20c. per pound, and g.p. in jecting molding will also be at 20c. per pound. HIGH-DENSITY POLYETHYLENE Monsanto and Dow have both announced that effective June 1 their prices for H-DPE wilt go up Monsanto will increase prices by 3c. per pound; blow molding, injection molding, and extrusion grades will be priced at 22c. per pound. Dow will also raise prices by 3c.; and both blow molding and injection molding grades will be priced at 2) 4c. per pound. Dow does not market an extrusion grade. NAVAL STORES Rosin sales for the week ending May 17 according to L'S department of Agri culture sources amounted to 305 drum equivalents compared with 685 the previous week and 594 for the same week last year. Prices paid, according to L'SDA, for gum . ''In:- * i>.n ii.c tr.fhiTHTl ;%i3TTrm I n no .i> * *.rt>o* i oeerr in ie .............MsmiiMemMs BFG24830 AMSCO AmscoDiwsen Union Oil Company of California -- May 20, 1974 CHEMICAL MARKETING REPORTER 21 23317002