Westlake Chemical restarts plant in Geismar

(westlakechemical) -- Westlake Chemical Corporation announced that its vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) unit at its complex in Geismar, Louisiana, damaged by a fire in late March, has been safely repaired and restarted. With the restart of this unit the overall site is now fully operational.

Westlake continues to cooperate with governmental authorities, including OSHA, EPA, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, and law enforcement, regarding the investigation into the factors contributing to the fire.

The company is working with its customers and suppliers to mitigate the impact of the outage and to meet their needs as production resumes.

MRC

(textileworld) -- France-based industrial company Reyes Groupe has acquired all the assets of SwissTex France , a manufacturer of twisting, assembling, cabling, covering and winding machinery for technical and textile yarn markets, and formerly part of the SwissTex group also including SwissTex Winterthur AG, Switzerland. Going forward, Reyes will operate the company under the name Verdol. SwissTex France has been operating under a Chapter 11-type regulation of the French courts.

Reyes has worked with SwissTex for more than 25 years and is familiar with its products and expertise -- including brands such as Verdol, ICBT, Rieter ICBT and RITM. The new owner believes this knowledge will help it enhance Verdol's technological, commercial and financial strength.

"Verdol and its teams, which we renewed our confidence for the quality of work in recent years, will be able, given the new resources that we put now at their disposal, to bring you again a better service and remove the failures of the past," said Reyes Groupe CEO Christophe Reyes and Verdol General Manager Jean-Claude Gnonlonfoun, in announcing the acquisition.

MRC

(chemmonitor) -- The Russian company EuroChem is about to make a significant deal for the world fertilizer market. The manufacturer will become a new proprietor of the Germany-headquartered company K+S Nitrogen.

The Russia's firm is to pay EUR 140 (USD 182) million for the German company.

The transaction activities are to be finalized by July of the current year under terms of the agreement signed by the Russian manufacturer and Germany-based K+S Aktiengesellschaft, an actual proprietor of the German fertilizer firm.

MRC