Download - Diamond, Nopco good friends
Nearly half of chem ical gifts go
— — — — — — • — — M J I I I
to schools
[ Type of business and number reporting
Contributions 1964 (% of pretax income)
Education Welfare & other
CHEMICALS (41) 0.46% 0.50% Banks (70) 0.23 0.64 Engineering (7) 0.15 0.15 Finance (6) 0.33 0.54 Insurance (67) 0.27 0.51 Manufacturing (339) 0.40 0.51
Primary metals (39) 0.52 0.68 Printing (12) 0.81 0.79 Textiles (10) 0.58 0.57
Merchandising (7) 0.27' 1.06 Telecommunications (16) 0.06 0.23 Transportation (8) 0.25 0.36 Utilities (60) 0.16 0.37 TOTAL (580) 0.31 0.48 Source: Council for Financial Aid to Education
But CFAE notes that, from 1956 to 1965, college enrollments rose from 2.6 million to more than 5 million. At the same time, school budgets climbed from $4.8 billion to about $10 billion. Thus, though support by business has grown, higher education's need for voluntary support has also risen dramatically.
Of the chemical industry's total gift dollars for all purposes in 1964, 48.3% went to education and 51.7% to "welfare and other" categories. In general, 43.8% of manufacturing companies' giving and 39.5% of all 580 companies' contributions went to education. The printing segment gave the highest percentage. The 12 printing firms who reported in the survey gave 0.81% of their pretax income to education (50.6%) and to welfare and other causes.
CFAE believes that "business contributions have proved sound business investments." Specifically, it believes that business, including the chemical industry, serves its own interests by supporting higher education because:
• Higher education supplies a steady flow of educated manpower for business.
• All of business today depends in one way or another on basic research, of which a considerable part is done at colleges and universities.
• Contributions to education help firms meet community responsibilities.
Union Carbide president Birny Mason, Jr., has sent a copy of the study with a personal letter to the chief executives of about 300 chemical companies. In his letter, he says that "Greater commitment from more companies in our field is imperative."
Diamond, Nopco good friends The more than 400,000 common shares of Nopco Chemical bought by Diamond Alkali give president Arthur B. Tillman's Cleveland-based company about 30% ownership in Nopco. Diamond has thus accomplished in part what General Aniline & Film tried, and failed, to accomplish in toto. Only last month, Nopco rejected an acquisition offer by GAF (C&EN, March 28, page 21) . Diamond bought its shares in the Newark, N.J., company from Madison Fund, Inc., at about $45.
Diamond is strong in basic inorganics such as carbonates, sodium silicates, and sodium sulfate. The com
pany also produces ethylene dichlo-ride, DDT, and other chlorinated or-ganics. Among other products, Nopco produces cosmetics, methionine, a line of animal multivitamins-antibiotics, and other fine chemicals.
In addition, Diamond has interests in leather-tanning chemicals and, more specifically, in chrome tanning. Nopco also is involved in leather tanning, but vegetable oils form the basis for its products.
Nopco is in water-based paints, and Diamond is trying to use a polyvinyl fluoride resin in the protective coatings market (which would put it in competition with Pennsalt and Du Pont) . Diamond's plastics division may also be supplemented by Nopco's polyurethane foam and its ethylene oxide adducts (which are used to make foams ) .
Diamond has no immediate plans to put a man on the Nopco board. All the officers at Nopco, including president George G. Stier, were recently re-elected.
Nopco netted $3.6 million in 1965 on record sales of $65.7 million; comparable figures for 1964 were $2.1 million and $62.5 million. Diamond had sales of more than $208 million last year and netted more than $16 million. Its sales in 1964 were $190 million and earnings were $13.8 million.
Diamond opened a new chlorine-caustic plant in 1965 in Delaware City, Del.; a polyvinyl chloride resin plant near the site is near completion. The company recently acquired a facility for sodium silicates near Oxnard, Calif. A jointly owned (with Colombian partners) PVC plant started operating in Cartegena, Colombia.
In 1965, Nopco acquired a lard-oil and fatty-chemical plant from Marcus
Diamond's Tillman Nopco's Stier 400,000 shares at $45 No change in his board
APRIL 18, 1966 C&EN 29
Ruth Jerome. The company also acquired Superior Zinc Co., which produces zinc dust and secondary zinc oxide. A modernization of its foam plastics plant in Plainfield, N.J., will be completed this year. Nopco added two foreign affiliates last year: Nopco Venezolana, S.A., Caracas, Venezuela, and Nopco (India) Private, Ltd., Bombay. The company has also applied to the Japanese government for the establishment of an affiliate near Kyoto.
Water pollution helm apt to move President Johnson's plan to transfer the Water Pollution Control Administration to the Interior Department from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare seems likely to take place despite the sharp criticism that it drew at hearings before a subcommittee of the Senate Government Operations Committee.
Water man Muskie A dollar to a penny
Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D.-Conn.), chairman of the subcommittee, charged that the proposal would not improve control of water pollution but was merely an example of "bureaucratic infighting." Sen. RibicofFs sentiments were echoed by Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D.-Me.), principal architect of last year's new water pollution control law, which established the Water Pollution Control Administration. Sen. Muskie claimed also that the proposed transfer would delay enforcement of the new water pollution control laws.
The transfer is the subject of Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1966, sent to Congress late in February by the President; unless Congress rejects the plan, it will take effect automatically
April 28. Senators Ribicoff and Muskie may be able to persuade the Government Operations Committee to vote a resolution of disapproval, but in a floor fight the Administration should be able to muster enough votes to win.
Reorganization Plan No. 2 would transfer to Interior from HEW the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, the Water Pollution Control Advisory Board, and the hearings boards provided for under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. HEW would continue to be responsible for the public health aspects of water pollution. The Administration expects the reorganization to strengthen the national effort by making Interior responsible for the general management and use of the nation's water resources. It expects the move also to reduce the number of agencies involved in pollution control in river basins and consolidate programs concerned with water quality.
Sen. Ribicoff says the proposed changes don't go far enough. He thinks the proposal should make Interior responsible for the health aspects of pollution; HEW experts could be transferred to Interior for this purpose. He also believes that all other aspects of pollution control, such as grants for municipal sewer systems and waste disposal plants, should be tranferred to Interior.
Sen. Muskie is concerned with these problems, too, but is more concerned that the transfer would delay present efforts to step up pollution control. The law passed last October gives states until July 1967 to set standards for water quality. These standards would be subject to approval by the pollution control agency about to be transferred to Interior.
So far the new control agency has had no time to help states develop suitable standards; the transfer to Interior would just introduce more delay, Sen. Muskie said. "I'm willing to bet a dollar to a penny," he says, "that state officials will be in here asking for an extension of the deadline. If they get it, the whole program will be delayed." He believes that the agency should stay in HEW until water standards have been set in all states.
Fertilizer prices stable Prices fanners pay for fertilizer will probably remain fairly stable during the heavy buying season now approaching. This is the assessment of several producers and other experts, who see the increases in phosphate prices (C&EN, April 4, page 17) and the more recent reduction in potash prices by all but one of the nation's 10 producers as canceling out one another
at the retail level. Prices for ammonia, source of the third essential plant nutrient, are firm at about $92 a ton, f.o.b.
Potash prices started down in late March when Southwest Potash, part of American Metal Climax, announced 7% cash discounts on the price of standard and coarse grades and a 5% cash discount on the granular grade. By last week, as other producers reacted, the downward trend seemed to have come to a halt. What evolved was 10% cash discounts on standard and coarse grades. The 5% discount on granular held. The effect is lower prices, with standard-grade potash now selling for 38.7 cents per 20-pound unit of K 2 0 instead of 43 cents. Southwest says it offered the discounts because other producers were giving similar discounts to some customers.
The one producer that refuses to lower its price is International Minerals & Chemical; its more than 3 million tons of annual capacity in the U.S. and Canada is the largest. A. E. Cascino, IMC vice president, believes his company can maintain its price position throughout the season because fertilizer producers' problem this year will be getting enough potash, not what they pay for it. The shortage of railroad cars, he says (and other producers agree), is severe and getting more so. But Mr. Cascino believes his company will be better able to deliver than its competitors because it has 2000 leased hopper cars exclusively at its disposal.
In Mr. Cascino's view, price reduction is unwarranted now. This year, he expects the potash industry in North America to ship at least 1 million tons more than it shipped in the 1964-65 year. (In the U.S. and Canadian market, he anticipates a 600,000 ton increase over last year's 5 million tons. The other 400,000 tons of increase will go to export markets.) Capacity increases so far this year have added about 1 million tons to the annual production in North America. He admits there are worries about impending over-capacity due to the Canadian potash boom. But, he argues, price reduction is not the answer. He refuses to say what his answer would be.
The price changes in potash and phosphates came too late to be reflected in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' March indexes of wholesale prices for fertilizer materials and mixed fertilizers. BLS compiles its index on the basis of prices on the Friday of the week that includes the 15th day of the month.
Both indexes remained stable between the February and March readings, with the index for fertilizer materials at 104.7% and that for mixed fer-
30 C&EN APRIL 18, 1966