March 2, 2010 - Officials from DuPont Co.'s Belle plant said Tuesday that they have lifted a "voluntary safety stand-down" instituted in January after a series of accidents, including a phosgene leak that killed a longtime DuPont worker.  In a prepared statement, DuPont spokesman Roger Hess said the company has restarted most of the units that were not involved in any of those incidents.  "We are monitoring each unit closely to ensure continued safe operation," Hess said in the statement. "We will continue with the staged resumption of operations as we determine that we can do so safely."  Various federal agencies, including the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, have launched investigations at the Belle plant following a series of accidents that also included a leak of toxic and flammable methyl chloride that went undetected by plant officials for nearly a week.  In the worst of the incidents, on Jan. 23, 32-year-plant veteran Carl "Danny" Fish was sprayed with phosgene, a chemical building block that was used as a poison gas during World War I. Fish died the following day.  DuPont did not provide a full list of units that are still not in operation, but did identify one unit that will not restart.

The Belle plant's sulfuric acid recovery unit -- where a sulfuric acid leak occurred the same day as the phosgene leak -- was already scheduled to shut down by March 31 under the terms of a federal environmental enforcement settlement.  DuPont and a partner in the unit, Lucite, agreed to pay a $2 million fine for not upgrading pollution control equipment when they expanded the unit's production capacity.  "In light of the current voluntary pause in production and the brief timeline to March 31, the SAR unit will not be restarted," DuPont said. "We do not anticipate any job losses as a result of these actions. We expect to place employees assigned to the SAR unit into existing openings at the Belle plant."

May 29, 2009 - On November 11, 2008, Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. announced its intention to purchase Lucite International Group Limited of the United Kingdom, and to convert the company into a consolidated subsidiary of Mitsubishi Rayon. We herewith announce that all procedures required for the said purchase and the inclusion of Lucite International in the Company’s scope of consolidation were completed on May 28, 2009.  The acquisition of Lucite International will make Mitsubishi Rayon into the leading company in the world MMA monomer market, and it constitutes the first step in expanding the Company’s core business, which is a priority issue under our current medium-term plan for three years to March 2011.  Mitsubishi Rayon will become the sole possessor of the world’s current three main technologies for MMA production, and the Company will be the largest maker of MMA monomer with a balanced production structure encompassing the United States, Europe, and East Asia. Thanks to this production system and its superior technology, including the new ethylene process (Alpha technology) of MMA production, the Company will be well-placed to satisfy all its customers’ needs, thereby achieving growth.  The assets and liabilities held by Lucite International will be included on the balance sheet of Mitsubishi Rayon for the settlement of accounts, on a consolidated basis, as of June 30, 2009, the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2009 (the business year ending March 31, 2010). However, profits and losses recorded by Lucite for the first quarter will be excluded from the income statements of Mitsubishi Rayon on a consolidated basis.

April 20, 2009 - DuPont and Lucite International Inc. have agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty to settle Clean Air Act violations at a sulfuric acid plant in Belle, West Virgina, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Justice Department, and the state of West Virginia announced today.  The sulfuric acid plant is located on a 100-acre chemical manufacturing complex along the Kanawha River. The plant is owned by Lucite and operated by DuPont.  The companies will pay $1 million to the United States and $1 million to the state of West Virginia.  Further, the companies chose on their own to shut down the sulfuric-acid manufacturing unit of a larger chemical facility at the site and the settlement confirms this agreement.  Under the settlement, the sulfuric acid unit is scheduled to shut down by April 1, 2010.  “The actions taken as part of this settlement will reduce emissions of air pollutants by more than 1,000 tons each year,” said Catherine McCabe, acting assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Sulfur dioxide emissions can be harmful to children, the elderly, and people with heart and lung conditions.”  “This settlement is part of the U.S. government’s dedicated effort to bring all sulfuric acid manufacturers into compliance with the Clean Air Act,” said John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division.  In a joint complaint, filed concurrently with the consent decree, the United States and West Virginia allege that the companies made modifications to their plant in 1996 without first obtaining pre-construction permits and installing required pollution control equipment. The Clean Air Act requires major sources of air pollution to obtain such permits before making changes that would result in a significant emissions increase of any pollutant.  The Belle sulfuric acid plant burns sulfuric acid sludge, which creates sulfur dioxide (SO₂). Most of the SO₂ is converted to sulfuric acid and recovered, but a portion of the chemical is emitted to the atmosphere. In addition to SO₂, the plant also emits sulfuric acid mist, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide.  The settlement is part of an EPA initiative to improve compliance among industries that have the potential to cause significant amounts of air pollution, including the cement manufacturing, glass manufacturing, and acid production industries.  The consent decree, lodged today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia is subject to a 30-day public comment period and approval by the federal court.

April 13, 2009 - China’s competition authorities are holding up the takeover of UK acrylics maker Lucite by a Japanese materials group, the Financial Times reported. Mitsubishi Rayon had agreed to acquire Lucite for US$1.6 billion in November and had expected to complete the deal by January. However, sources told the paper that China’s Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) has withheld approval for the acquisition, making it the only global antitrust regulator to not approve the deal. While neither Mitsubishi Rayon nor Lucite are based in China, both companies have sales and manufacturing in in the country, thus requiring MofCom approval for any takeover.

March 30, 2009 - Lucite International, Inc., part of the Lucite International group of companies, announced that it will cease manufacturing Methacrylic Acid (MAA) at its facility in Belle, West Virginia, at the end of the first quarter of 2010.  "In these economic times the operating costs are prohibitive to the point that Lucite International can no longer justify continuing to manufacture MAA at Belle profitably," said Robert Connolly, Business Director - Monomers of Lucite International, Inc. He continued, "As the global Methacrylate leader, we will utilize our global resources to fulfill all contractual commitments."  This announcement does not affect or impact in any way Lucite International`s Higher Monomers operations at the Belle facility.