February 11, 2022

Tosoh Names New President

Tosoh appoints new president

February 11/2022

MOSCOW (MRC) — Japanese chemicals company Tosoh Corp has appointed Mamoru Kuwada as its new president and representative director, effective 1 March, said the company.

Kuwada is currently executive vice president of Tosoh and president of Tosoh’s Specialty Group. In his new role, Kuwada succeeds Toshinori Yamamoto, who will become a corporate advisor to the company after the annual general meeting in June.

“Implementation of the company’s fiscal 2023 medium-term business plan will be overseen by a new management team, with the aim of further strengthening its earnings and business foundation and achieving further growth,” Tosoh said.

Tosh is a large chlor-alkali producer and it supplies ethylene, polyethylene, and functional polymers. It also has an advanced materials business that serves the global semiconductor, display, and solar industries.

As MRC informed earlier, Tosoh Corporation, a major Japanese petrochemical producer, has announced it will permanently stop producing and selling toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and TDI-related products from its Nanyo complex in Japan, effective April 2023. Despite the continuous implementation of measures to improve profitability, the environment surrounding this business has become increasingly severe in recent years, and there are no prospects for improvement, the company stated. Tosoh currently produce 25,000 t/y of TDI at the site.

As MRC reported earlier, Tosoh resumed normal production at its caustic soda plant in Nanyo City (Nanyo, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan) with the capacity of 1.188 million tons of caustic soda and 1.06 million tons of chlorine per year on June 24, 2021. The company experienced some technical issues when restarting after a scheduled repair. Since June 12, the caustic and chlorine production capacity utilisation was reduced by about 30%.

Founded in 1935, Japan’s Tosoh Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, is an international chemicals and specialty materials company. The main activity of the company is the production of chlor-alkali and petrochemical products, which include ethylene, propylene, polypropylene, polyethylene and synthetic rubbers. The Tosoh Group globally includes over 130 companies with manufacturing facilities and offices in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, UK, Greece, Switzerland and the USA.

http://www.mrcplast.com/news-news_open-399072.html

February 9, 2022

FXI Fire in CA

Industrial fire in Orange generates huge flames, explosion

A greater-alarm fire broke out in an industrial area of Orange early Wednesday. (Photo by Nathan Holguin/RMG News)

By Nathaniel Percy | npercy@scng.com | Daily BreezePUBLISHED: February 9, 2022 at 2:56 a.m. | UPDATED: February 9, 2022 at 8:26 a.m.

A fire at a large foam-making company in Orange sent massive flames and plumes of smoke into the air early Wednesday, Feb. 9, possibly destroying two vehicles and a couple outbuildings before firefighters extinguished the blaze, authorities said.

No employee or firefighter was injured, said Capt. Ryan O’Connor of the Orange Fire Department.

Firefighters received a call from employees at FXI, located at 2060 N. Batavia St., about 12:30 a.m.

As firefighters made their way to the 24-acre property, “most of our rigs could see a header and a glow from their stations,” he said.

Firefighters immediately called for more resources and took a defensive approach, setting up rigs around the circumference of the property to pour water onto the fire and protect neighboring buildings, O’Connor said.

Employees told firefighters they were loading large rectangles of foam, called foam buns, from an outside lot onto a conveyor belt to be processed when they noticed one of them smoking, O’Connor said.

“They moved it off of the conveyor belt and they tried to extinguish it, but by that time, it had gotten out of hand and had spread to others,” the captain said.

Fifteen to 20 employees were across the street from the building when firefighters arrived, he said.

The department received help from nearby fire departments, with the bulk of the fire put out in about two hours.

What caused the fire was under investigation and an estimated cost of the damage was not immediately available.

FXI has operated at the facility since 2009 and purchased the property in 2014, according to a company statement announcing the purchase.

In October 2020, firefighters put out a smaller blaze at FXI in about 20 minutes. During that battle, firefighters focused their efforts on a large metal pipe that connected the main building with a smaller structure outside.