• Carborundum Universal International Ltd Cyprus, a wholly owned subsidiary of CUMI India, part of the $4.4 billion Murugappa Group, signed an agreement with Austria-headquartered RHI AG to buy the Vienna-based heat-resistant refractory products maker’s South African units RHI Isithebe (Pty) Ltd and RHI Refractories Africa (Pty) Ltd. The two SA businesses logged combined revenues of Rs. 120 crore in 2011 growing at a 10 percent rate, CUMI’s vice president Dhanvanth Kumar says. CUMI India also has entered into techno-commercial agreement with UK firms Sheffield Refractories and Anderman Ceramics to manufacture, supply and install a range of high-end refractory solutions for the steel and glass industries and for aerospace component manufacture.

• Morgan Thermal Ceramics announces the expansion of its Kao-Tuff line of special duty abrasion-resistant refractory castable products, developed specifically for the chemical process (petrochemical) industry where harsh environments are encountered.

• Magnezit Group has announced the divestment of its German subsidiary Dalmond Feuerfest Siegburg GmbH, that has been taken over by Intocast AG situated in Ratingen. The value of the transaction was not disclosed; Dalmond Feuerfest Siegburg became part of Magnezit Group in 2007.

• The European Commission granted clearance to the proposed creation of a joint venture by South Korea’s Posco Chemtech Co. and Japanese companies Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. The JV will be active in the production and supply of pitch coke, needle coke and other by-products to customers in South Korea, China, Japan, India, Taiwan and Russia.

• ANH Refractories, based in North West of Great Britain, has hired Stefan Frank, a senior engineer with more than 20 years’ experience to drive export sales across Europe. Stefan has joined the Wirral firm to bolster expertise in the cement sector. He has been charged with kickstarting a new campaign to increase ANH’s profile and drive sales in emerging cement markets in countries including Turkey, Ukraine and Italy.

• According to news release from Luoyang Glass, China Luoyang Float Glass Group has got approval to relocate and reconstruct three production line and corresponding facilities. To avoid horizontal competition, the trade access will be taken over by Luoyang Glass at optimum time. Involved lines are: a 600 tons per day low-E coated float glass line, a 500 tons per day ultraclear rolling glass line (four lines from a kiln) and a 150 tons per day line of ultrathin float glass with thickness below 0.55 millimeters.

Arc International is investing nearly $40 million on state-of-the-art advancements that dramatically lower emissions from its Durand Glass Manufacturing Co. glass furnaces while increasing production capacity. The investments, which included building an additional natural gas furnace to increase capacity, also created additional new jobs while protecting the more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs already existing at the facility.

• Corning Inc. has announced the extension of its Eagle XG Slim glass substrates product line to support LCD panel manufacturing for portable display applications. The extension adds 0.3 millimeter glass in Generation 6, to provide cost benefit to LCD display panel manufacturers.

• Gweru-based firm Zimbabwe Glass Industries (Zimglass) reportedly failed to reopen as scheduled last Friday amid reports the company’s furnaces were still being refurbished. Zimglass was shut down in September 2010.

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