SALT LAKE CITY - Huntsman Chemical Co. of Salt Lake City will establish a joint venture with Continental Grain Co. and an Indian packaging company to open a packaging manufacturing plant in India this year. Groundbreaking for the 23,000-square-foot facility in Goa, India, is planned for this month. It will be 50 percent owned by Huntsman and Continental and 50 percent owned by Supreme Industries Ltd. of Bombay, India, which will operate the facility under the name Huntsman Supreme Ltd.
The $8.4 million plant will make polystyrene foam packaging and food containers. Products will include containers for meat, vegetables and fast food, according to Michael Eades, vice president for business development for Huntsman.
Initial production will be about 1,500 tons of polystyrene per year, with overall capacity of about 6,000 tons per year.
Huntsman first teamed up with Continental Grain in 1993 to open a similar plant in Beijing. That plant is expected to open in late 1996.
Supreme, one of the largest molders in India, is using Huntsman technology in construction of a new plant in Maharastra, India.
Continental is a food, milling, commodities and financial services company based in New York.
Huntsman Chemical is the largest privately held chemical company in the United States and, with subsidiary companies, is a major producer of polystyrene, styrene, phenol, polypropylene, ABS, phenolics, polyester and compounded resins.
ICI reorganizes polymers buliness
WILMINGTON, DEL.-ICI Chemicals and Polymers Inc. of Wilmington reorganized its polyester intermediates and polymers business as of Jan. 1.
Phillip Bruce will serve as general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, while David Toolin will be general manager for the Americas and David Hewit will be general manager for the Asia/Pacific region.
The company said the reorganization will support major new investment programs globally.
DTM Corp. signs 6 distribution firms
AUSTIN, TEXAS-DTM Corp. of Austin has completed a distribution agreement with six companies in Europe and Asia for the marketing of its SLS Selective Laser Sintering process machinery.
Leeport Machine Tool Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong, Star Mechatronix Corp. of Seoul, South Korea, and Alpha Precision Instrumentation Corp. of Taipei, Taiwan, will act as Asian agents while Multistation of Paris, In-Tech Tecnologie Industriali of Collegno, Italy, and Sistemas de Control en Linea of Barcelona, Spain, will distribute in Europe.
DTM's prototyping system is used in automotive, manufacturing and aerospace applications.
Allied signal adds capacity at plany
MORRISTOWN, N.J.-AlliedSignal's Engineering Plastics Group will double the production capacity of its Chesterfield, Va., engineering resin plant in a three-phase development due to be complete in 1997.
Company spokesmen declined to give the size of the plant or its current capacity, but said the first phase, increasing capacity 10 percent, has been completed. The second phase, a 60 percent expansion, will be completed by the end of 1995, and the final phase will be completed in the first quarter of 1997.
The plastics group, based in Morristown, is the largest North American producer of nylon 6, used in auto, packaging, wire, cable and electronic markets.
Huls sells facility to Velsicol chimical
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Huls America Inc. of Piscataway has sold its Chestertown, Md., plant and some related product lines to an Illinois company.
Velsicol Chemical Co. of Rosemont, Ill., will take over the plant and Huls' plasticizer and military specification lubricant businesses. Huls will retain the industrial lubricant and oil additive products now produced at the plant.
The sale was made to allow Huls to concentrate more on its core product lines, including synthetic lubricants, additives, specialty polymers and colorant and coating additives, according to a company statement.
Flow internation to buy robot makers
KENT, WASH.-Flow International Corp. of Kent has signed letters of intent to acquire two robotics articulation equipment manufacturers.
The acquisition of ASI Robotics Systems Inc. of Jeffersonville, Ind., and Dynovation Machine Systems Inc. of Burlington, Ontario, is expected to be complete this month. Terms were not disclosed.
The two firms manufacture precision robotic equipment. The acquisition will enable Flow to provide motion control for its ultrahigh-pressure water-jet equipment for complex cutting, cleaning and surface preparation. ASI designs and manufactures advanced gantry robots and Dynovation designs and manufactures modular water-jet cutting cells and automated assembly systems.
Pall Corp. filter gas several uses
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. - Pall Corp. of Port Washington has developed a new filter that the company claims has a larger filter area, costs less and lasts longer than other filters.
The new filters, called Unipleat Profiles, are targeted at a wide number of applications, including the removal of gels and particles from resins, films and fibers in processing plastics, processing plastic monomers, and removing particulates from processing water used to cool molds. The company also is targeting the products at applications in other industries.
Bill Palmer, corporate vice president of Pall, said his company developed a configuration for the pleated polypropylene fibers used as the filtering element in its products. That configuration uses a crescent-shaped pattern - as opposed to the triangular shape traditionally used in filters - to provide the larger filter area.
Palmer claimed his firm's new filters have as much as one-half the flow resistance as a conventional, pleated filter, and as much as one-fifteenth the flow resistance of a conventional depth filter.
Pall's new filters are priced between depth filters, the current low-cost product, and conventional, pleated filters, the current high-cost filter, he said.
MHR relocated to new, larher plant
HOLLAND, MICH.-MHR Co. of Holland began operating from a new facility Jan. 2.
The company moved to a 1,000-square-foot leased building in Holland, doubling its production space.
The 6-year-old company repairs and refurbishes mix heads for reaction injection molding equipment, according to Jim Gohlke, sales and marketing manager.
Gohlke said the move will allow the company to improve service to its customers, which are primarily automotive reaction injection molders, and to expand into the construction and refrigeration markets.
Stopol relocated Ohio headquaters
SOLON, OHIO-Stopol Inc., a reseller of plastics manufacturing equipment, has moved to a new, 4,100-square-foot headquarters in Solon.
Stopol formerly occupied a building, in nearby Moreland Hills, Ohio, that was about one-third the size of its new one.
The company specializes in buying and reselling used blow molding, thermoforming, injection molding, and structural foam and rotational molding equipment.
Stopol projects total sales of $12 million for 1995, and plans to double its sales force. It had sales of about $8.1 million in 1994.
Neil Kruschke Jr., chief executive officer, said the bulk of the firm's growth in sales in 1994 came in the areas of injection molding and thermoforming equipment.
Stopol maintains warehouse space throughout North America, Kruschke said.
He also said the firm will open a marketing office later this year in Latin America, probably Mexico City, to serve customers in that region.
Carolina Color Corp. expands in Texas
SALISBURY, N.C. - Carolina Color Corp. of Salisbury will expand its Lancaster, Texas, plant, by about 27,000 square feet, doubling its size.
Construction is scheduled for the first quarter of this year, and will create lab, customer support, production and warehousing space, the company said in a news release.
Carolina Color is a major manufacturer of custom color concentrates and dry color for thermoplastics. It has plants in Lancaster, Texas; Delaware, Ohio; and Salisbury.
Carolina Color President Vincent Benedetto said the firm also has spent more than $1 million to install new extrusion equipment in all three facilities, including new, sensitive equipment to detect trace levels of heavy metals in colorants, and weathering testing devices.
