(Note: the most recent Ceramic Tech Today email—May 15, 2012—accidentally contained an older link that directs readers to this page. For readers who want to go to P. Carlo Ratto’s most recent “News from the glass and refractory worlds, please click here.)
• According to reports, Asahi Glass is considering expanding a factory it has just started building in Brazil, in order to double the facility’s planned output of automotive glass.
• Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties LLC announced recently it would add a sixth kiln at its dolomitic lime production facility in Woodville.
• A silicon metal smelter will be setup in Abu Dhabi’s newest industrial zone KIZAD, which will supply high grade silicon to aluminium smelters in the region. The plant operated by Al Braik Investments is estimated to cost around Dh638 million.
• Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan hopes to seal the sale of four alumina plants by the end of September; at the end of March, Rio Tinto had received a binding offer from private equity group HIG for its three specialty alumina plants in France and one in Germany and would respond to the offer after consulting unions.
• Kerneos, a world leader in calcium aluminates, is pleased to announce that it has acquired a 54% stake in the capital of the Greek company Elmin, the leading European exporter of monohydrate bauxite.