BASF starts production of its fungicide innovation Revysol

MOSCOW (MRC) – BASF has started production of its latest fungicide innovation Revysol at its site in Hannibal. With this new active ingredient, BASF will provide farmers worldwide with a new tool to ensure healthy, disease-free crops for a longer period of time and will strengthen its leading position in fungicides, said the company.

Revysol is the first fungicide to be produced at the site in Hannibal. Pending regulatory approval, first market introductions are expected for the 2019/2020 season.

"We are pleased with the successful start of production in Hannibal. It is a significant milestone towards bringing this highly-effective fungicide to our customers,” said Markus Heldt, President of BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division. With an investment in the double-digit million euro range, BASF has enhanced an existing manufacturing system to produce the new active ingredient.

Locating the world’s first production site for Revysol in the United States emphasizes the strategic importance of this new fungicide to North American markets. “We are proud that Hannibal is the first site to produce Revysol,” said Anne Berg, Vice President Manufacturing Americas, BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division.

"This decision was based on the high level of technology and experience on the site and is an investment in its future development that will save and create new jobs."

Revysol is expected to become BASF’s new blockbuster fungicide. It has the potential of reaching peak sales above EUR1 billion. BASF has applied for registration of Revysol in 60 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas for more than 40 crops. The proprietary compound was designed to meet the high level of regulatory standards while demonstrating an outstanding performance and selectivity in a broad range of row and specialty crops. Farmers will benefit from its fast-acting and long-lasting disease control resulting in improved farm management. Revysol will be available in customized formulations to farmers across the globe and enable them to better protect their crops under various growing conditions.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- This new, low-emission impregnating resin allows for the design of smaller and more efficient motors, and for the significant reduction of the operating temperatures of standard design motors, as per Coatingsworld.

And Voltatex 4224 is manufactured using renewable raw materials.

Voltatex 4224 has a thermal conductivity that is more than double – 0.5 and 0.9 W/mK – compared to most standard impregnating resins. Available in three viscosity adjustments – low, medium and high– it can be processed with conventional impregnation technologies such as trickling, dripping and rolling. Voltatex 4224 is a styrene- and vinyl toluene-free impregnating resin, which means that emissions are reduced to a minimum in order to create a better working environment and limit flammability as well as emissions exposure.

“The technology we have used to formulate Voltatex 4224 has resulted in a resin that improves the heat transfer from the copper winding to the steel core causing less thermal stress in motors’ components, so that motors can run more efficiently and be smaller,” said Dr. Christoph Lomoschitz, global product manager for Axalta’s Energy Solutions business.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) – BASF and the Dutch Earth observation company VanderSat are collaborating to support farmers worldwide with even more precise, satellite data-based recommendations on application of crop inputs, said the company.

VanderSat’s satellite data uses high-precision microwave technology to measure soil moisture and surface temperatures in individual field zones. The technology will be an additional data source for BASF’s xarvio Field Manager, a commercial product that for example calculates the risk of disease on a field-by-field basis, providing farmers with individually tailored application maps and optimized timing for crop protection measures.

"Knowing soil moisture levels is key to predicting yield risks and crop development more accurately,” said Ole Peters, Head of Technology Digital Farming at BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division. “By integrating VanderSat’s data into our digital farming technology, farmers will benefit from even more precise, field-zone-specific information and forecasts – both for our existing offers and for future solutions that will be enabled by this technology. It will help farmers, replace in-field soil sensors in many situations, and will ensure more efficient and sustainable use of water and crop inputs."

The microwave data from VanderSat is collected daily for every field around the world at a spatial resolution of 100 x 100 meters. It will provide a unique and independent layer of information to build the digital profile of a field in BASF’s xarvio Field Manager. “One major advantage of microwave sensing is that cloud cover does not interfere with the measurement from space,” said Richard de Jeu, founder and Chief Technology Officer of VanderSat. “We have been collecting daily information on soil moisture and temperature from different satellites for many years. As a result, we now have an archive of data that goes back more than 16 years. These elements in combination with high-resolution sensing make our satellite-derived products highly reliable for determining field-zone-specific management decisions."

Data validation and prototyping done by both companies already show that VanderSat’s satellite data is typically more consistent and representative than measurements of soil moisture and temperature from field sensors. BASF and VanderSat are now validating solutions on several hundred fields on three continents in different crops to enable farmers to make more accurate agronomic decisions.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- About 100 United Steelworkers union (USW) members rallied on Wednesday outside a LyondellBasell Industries Houston oil refinery to protest the lack of negotiations there on a new local contract, reported Reuters.

Talks on a national oil-workers agreement are due to begin next month with Shell Oil Co, the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, as the lead industry negotiator. Existing union contracts expire on Feb. 1.

Local groups are beginning discussions, however, on individual plant issues ahead of the national talks. At least four other plants also have begun exchanging proposals on local issues, according to the USW.

LyondellBasell officials did not begin talks on union local issues as planned on Monday, Marcos Velez, a USW International representative, said in an interview on Wednesday. The existing contract covering the plant’s 485 union workers expires on Feb. 1.

"They called and said they couldn’t make it (Monday) and would call about meeting Tuesday," Velez said. "It’s Wednesday and we’re still waiting to meet."

“LyondellBasell and United Steelworkers Local 13-227 are in the process of entering good faith negotiations with the shared interest of reaching an agreement that is fair and equitable for the company and our represented employees,” said company spokeswoman Chevalier Gray.

The USW group carried signs that read: “Coming soon” and showed silhouettes of people picketing. Union-represented Lyondell workers were off their jobs for 3-1/2 months during a strike and contract talks in 2015.

The national agreement, which covers wages, job security, health and safety issues, will be combined with terms of the agreement on local issues at each plant to complete the contract for each location.

Velez said Lyondell also canceled meetings during the 2015 strike.

"It’s not uncommon, but it’s unacceptable," he said.

During the rally, USW activist Joshua Lege used a bullhorn to speak to the workers, many of them wearing blue work coveralls as they lined up in front of the refinery.

"They say they want peace and professionalism, but they want war," Lege said.

The national contract covers about 30,000 refinery and chemical plant workers. In September, union officials agreed to seek 8 percent annual wage increases and a three-year contract in the coming negotiations.

The contract would cover plants operated by Shell, Marathon Petroleum Corp BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp, Valero Energy Corp, and smaller refiners such as HollyFrontier Corp and Delek US Holdings Inc.

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC