Business Roundup

Sumitomo Chemical plans to increase its polyethersulfone capacity in Shikoku, Japan, by 500 metric tons to a total of 3,000 metric tons per year. The engineering plastic is used in carbon fiber composites for the airline industry.

Syngenta will cut some 480 jobs, out of a total of nearly 19,000 worldwide, over the next two years in a bid to save $40 million. About 360 jobs will be lost at three sites in Britain, and the rest will come from the U.S. and Switzerland.

RAG has completed its takeover of Degussa by forcibly acquiring, under German law, the last remaining shares from holdout shareholders. Including a premium given to the minority shareholders, RAG has paid roughly $56.40 per share for the specialty chemicals giant.

Kemira will acquire four water-treatment companies from the Danish firm Parcon. The four firms offer chemicals and services for water treatment and surface cleaning. They had sales last year of about $26 million.

Chemtura will raise capacity for plasticizers based on epoxidized soybean oil at its Taft, La., facility by 15%, beginning in January 2007.

Lanxess will expand capacity for m-cresol at its Leverkusen, Germany, site. The company says process improvements will boost capacity about 15% by next spring and that further increases are in the offing.