Chemical Industry Weekly News Round-Up, Dec. 2

 

BASF is targeting an 80% increase in sales by 2020, to $153 billion. Development and sale of sustainable products and expansion into emerging markets are expected to drive the increase.

 

Sasol is studying the construction of a world-scale ethane cracker at the company’s Lake Charles, LA site. The project would cost around $4 billion and produce about 1 million to 1.4 million m.t./year of ethylene.

 

Nufarm has acquired U.S. seeds firm Seeds 2000 for $55.2 million. Seeds 2000 focuses on research and production of sunflower seeds and has annual revenues of around $20 million.

 

Ecolab’s $8.3 billion acquisition of Nalco has officially closed. The cash and stock offer creates a company with 38,000 employees and $11 billion in annualized sales.

 

 

Some interesting stuff on the “science” of management has cropped up lately. A blogger reviews the book The Management Myth, a critical look at much of management theory, in Coffee Theory. Meanwhile, The Economist discusses new research into the genetic influences of business and career success.

 

You may not expect Mother Jones, possibly the most reliably liberal U.S. newsmagazine, to praise simple regulations – but it has, noting that big business sometimes prefers complexity.

 

November’s U.S. jobs report was generally good, with unemployment falling to its lowest level since March 2009, in Business Week.

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