the Asia/Pacific region, making colourconcentrates, masterbatches andplastic compounds.

Plastics News, 5 Oct 2004, (Website:http://www.plasticsnews.com)

US: Standridge – plastics colorants

Standridge Color Corp plans to openits colour compounds andconcentrates unit at Defiance, OHbefore the end of this year. The newproperty, built at a cost of $1.8 M, willhave 29,000 square feet of floorspace. About 20 people will beemployed here. The company wasgiven a $200,000 grant from the localauthorities for the installation of arailway spur to serve its new factorysite. The Standridge group(headquartered in Georgia) is asignificant player in the plasticscolorants field, with annual sales ofabout $150 M, a workforce of around350 and a total capacity in excess of140,000 tonnes/y.

Plastics News, 8 Sep 2004 (Website:http://www.plasticsnews.com)

US: Sumika – plastics masterbatch

Sumika Color already producesplastics masterbatch in Japan, Chinaand Singapore. Now the company hasestablished a wholly-ownedsubsidiary in the US and it isconsidering investment in setting up amanufacturing unit in the US. As afirst step towards developing a betterunderstanding of the market, Sumikais renting a 1000 tonnes/ymasterbatch facility in the southernUS, owned by Comtec Polymers.From this facility, Sumika will supplycolour masterbatches to Sumitomo’s5000 tonnes/y thermoplasticelastomers unit in Georgia.

Japan Chemical Week, 26 Aug 2004, 45 (2283), 9

US: TOR Minerals – Hitox titanium(milled synrutile) pigments

At its Corpus Christi plant, TORMinerals has added a new $1.5 Mproduction unit for making Hitoxpigments. These are essentiallybased on finely milled synrutile, thefeedstock being imported from thecompany’s subsidiary in Malaysia.Limited production at the new CorpusChristi unit began towards the end of

September 2004 and the unit isexpected to be fully operational by theend of the year. This will raisecapacity for making Hitox pigmentsfrom 15,000 tonnes/y to 25,000tonnes/y. The new facilities are alsoassociated with significantly lowerenergy costs.

For the first six months of 2004,TOR Minerals declared a post-taxprofit of $431,000 on sales of $12.4M, compared against $435,000 on$9.9 M in 1H 2003.

Industrial Minerals, Sep 2004, (444), 9 & Pressrelease from: TOR Minerals, 722 Burleson Street,Corpus Christi, TX 78402, USA. Tel: +1 512 882 5175.Website: http://www.torminerals.com (4 Aug 2004)

COMPANIES

Akzo Nobel & BASF exchange woodprotection & paints assets

Akzo Nobel and BASF have agreedon an exchange of certain of theirpaints businesses. BASF will transferits wood protection and coatingsactivities to Akzo Nobel. Theseactivities bring in a total sales revenueof €17 M. BASF will also transfer itspaints production at Munster to theAkzo Nobel site at Cologne. AkzoNobel will transfer to BASF some of itspaints activities in Germany, Austria,France, Italy, Switzerland and Spain.

Akzo Nobel divested its Hungarianpaint business to Tikkurila and sold itsFrench industrial resins subsidiary toDerivados Forestales. BASF recentlyexchanged certain of its woodprotection activities with thosebelonging to the Treffert group.

Chimie Pharma Hebdo, 30 Aug 2004, (265), 10 (inFrench)

Albion buys Stahl’s paper colorantsbusiness & sells caramel colorants forWilliamson

Albion Chemicals has agreed toacquire the paper colorants businessof Stahl Industrial Colorants. Theacquisition includes the recentlyconstructed plant at Halifax inYorkshire. Meanwhile, Stahl’s Frenchpaper colorants plant is to be closed.(See also ‘Focus on Pigments’, Oct2004, 4).

Colorants is now Albion’s major

business sector and the companysupplies a wide range of products.Earlier this year, Albion was appointedas a UK distributor of caramelcolorants, produced byD.D.Williamson (of the US).

Pulp and Paper International, Oct 2004, 46 (10), 14 &European Chemical News, 13 Sep 2004, 81 (2115), 18

CVRD sells 82% stake in ParaPigmentos to Caemi

As noted in ‘Focus on Pigments’, Jun2004, 3, Cia Vale do Rio Doce(CVRD) had emerged as thedominant player in the Brazilian kaolinindustry, with substantialshareholdings in both Caulim daAmazonia (Cadam) and ParaPigmentos. Cadam can producenearly 1 M tonnes/y of kaolin from theMorro do Felipe mine on the RiverJari. Para Pigmentos can produce600,000 tonnes/y from its kaolin miningoperations on the River Capim.

Towards the end of October, CVRDannounced that it had sold itsshareholding in Para Pigmentos toCaemi Mineracao & Metalurgia.CVRD had owned 85.6% of the votingcapital and 82% of the total capital ofPara Pigmentos. The value of thetransaction was $117.8 M. Caemialready owned 61% of Cadam’ssharecapital. Explaining the rationalefor this move, CVRD stated: “Theobjective is to consolidate the kaolinbusiness under Caemi. ParaPigmentos and Cadam producedifferent but complementary types ofkaolin for paper coating. Moreover,they are performing studies for thedevelopment of kaolin products forother applications, so as to create amore diversified portfolio. There areseveral synergies to be explored.Such synergies arise mostly fromexpected operational and logisticalgains (estimated at $16.1 M) and fromthe combined marketing of fine andcoarse kaolins product lines (roughly$8.2 M).”

In the first six months of 2004,Cadam produced 373,000 tonnes ofkaolin and contributed about 10% ofthe Caemi group’s total revenue. Inthe first six months of 2004, ParaPigmentos sold 198,700 tonnes ofkaolin, generating net sales revenuesof $30.9 M. Earnings before interest,tax, depreciation and amortisation(EBITDA) amounted to $8.4 M. As at

6 NOVEMBER 2004

F O C U S O N P I G M E N T S