Plans were laid for Israel‘s first petrochemical operation. The plant at Haifa will produce ethylene, polyethylene, carbon black, and dodecylbenzene. Capacity for extracting potash from Dead Sea water is being expanded from 150,000 to 600,000 tons annually. The expansion will include plants to make salt, magnesite, and bromine and its derivatives from Dead Sea water.
A major petrochemical complex will be built at San Lorenzo, Argentina, by a group of U.S. companies. When completed between 1962 and 1964, it will produce butadiene, styrene, synthetic rubber, benzene, and other chemicals. Another plant in the same area will turn out benzene and other aromatic compounds from petroleum raw materials. And at San Lorenzo, too, Britain’s ICI will add a polyester fiber unit to the chemical and plastics plants it has there.
South America’s first polybutadiene rubber plant is under construction at Recife, Brazil. And South America’s largest chlorine-caustic soda plant will be able to make 100 tons of caustic and 90 tons of chlorine a day when it is completed in 1963 near São Paulo, Brazil.
India‘s third five-year industrialization plan, started in 1961, called for a sharp boost in chemical and fertilizer output. The country’s first large sulfur plant is slated for completion by 1963, when it is expected to produce 400 tons a day by smelting pyrites. Union Carbide‘s plant near Bombay is being expanded to produce 20 million pounds of polyethylene a year, as well as increased amounts of various organic chemicals. Several plants for making polyvinyl chloride resin are under way, as well as two new calcium carbide plants.
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