Business Roundup

Dow Chemical and Symyx Technologies have extended their polyolefin catalyst research pact by six months, to the end of the year. The partners say the extension allows R&D to proceed while they discuss future business arrangements.

DuPont has acquired BioSentry's animal health business, a provider of cleaning products for animal and food safety. DuPont purchased a related firm, Antec International, last year.

Air Products & Chemicals will double capacity at its plant in Guangzhou, China. Once expanded early next year, the facility will be able to produce more than 800 metric tons per day of liquid hydrogen, nitrogen, and argon—China's largest liquid industrial gases plant, the firm says.

Mississippi Chemical is obtaining $182.5 million in financing from CitiGroup Global Markets and Perry Principal Investments. The two firms have also agreed to provide the fertilizer producer with $210 million in financing when it emerges from bankruptcy reorganization.

Atofina's acrylic sheeting subsidiary Atoglas will concentrate its European cast sheet production in Carling-Saint Avold, France. The firm will build a new production line at the site by September 2006, after which it will close a plant in the Netherlands.

Syngenta will end research into genetically modified crops in the U.K., cutting 130 jobs, and move that work to Greensboro, N.C. Syngenta was the last company conducting such research in the U.K., following the closing of sites by Bayer, Monsanto, and DuPont.

Kharg Petrochemical has signed a contract for construction of its second methanol plant on Iran's Kharg Island. The new plant will have capacity for 660,000 metric tons per year; its feedstock will be gases that are currently being flared at the Kharg Island refinery of Iranian Offshore Oil Co.