• Japanese electronics company Hitachi has unveiled slivers of glass that can store digital information for millions of years. The company said the slivers of quartz glass can endure extreme temperatures and hostile conditions without degrading.
• Beroa NovoCos sister company has terminated a joint venture with Sorg. The shareholders of Sorg-Karrena Service GmbH, Lohr am Main, have decided to end their joint venture retroactive as per 31.12.2011. Karrena Glas has been transferred to Beroa Deutschland GmbH. The remaining Sorg-Karrena Service GmbH will continue its activity, under a new name, inside the Sorg Group.
• SGL Group, a leading carbon company, announces a price increase for their graphite electrode business of 9 percent over currently contracted prices. These new prices are in effect immediately for all new orders and only valid for shipments made until June 30, 2013.
• Saint-Gobain Oberland, known under the brand Verallia, is preparing to idle two furnaces for repairs. Furnace #3 in the Neuburg plant will be taken out at the beginning of this month (October) for a scheduled rebuild. Furnace #1 in the Essen plant is scheduled to be rebuilt from the end of the year onwards, with the restart planned for Q2 2013.
• Azov Glass Tare Plant plans to double production (up to 260 million bottles a year); the plant belongs to the group of Nota companies. Azov Glass Plant Ltd. has been working since 2005 and is specialized in manufacturing of glass containers in various types and configurations of colorless glass.
• Guardian Industries has reached an agreement in principle for KGIC LLC, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, to purchase a minority stake in Guardian, according to an Oct. 3 letter from the Guardian board of directors to employees. As both are private companies, the terms of the transaction were not released.
• A major water leak on South US Route 287 between Interstate 45 and Guardian Glass plant put the glass manufacturer out of water for several hours on the evening of Tuesday Oct. 3, with a temporary impact on production.
• Capital Refractories will be exhibiting at the Investment Casting Institute’s 59th Annual Technical Conference and Expo Oct. 7-10, 2012, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, Tenn. The company will be exhibiting a number of the complex ceramic cores it manufactures and are used in the modern casting houses. A number of these cores are the largest and most complex used in the IGT & Aerospace industry. It also manufactures cores for the medical, hardware and automotive casting industries.