Business Watch: Westlake to close PVC plant in Cologne, and more

Freight rates to substantial shipping containers from East Asia to the US West Coast have quadrupled since the war began in late February and are approaching records set in 2022. Rates from Asia to the East Coast have been even greater evaporative.

According to a blog post from the logistics analytics firm Xeneta, freight rates have been growing to a lot of reasons—“death by a thousand paper cuts,” as the post puts it. Part of the rise is due to high oil prices and fuel costs. A significant variable has nothing to do with the war at all: the Pacific is experiencing a particularly bad typhoon season.

Questions? Comments? Tips? Send them to me, senior correspondent Alex Tullo, at a_tullo@acs.org.

Citing continued high energy costs, weak demand, and pressure from Asian imports, the Houston-based petrochemical and building materials maker Westlake plans to close its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in Cologne, Germany, during the first quarter of 2027. The facility has an annual PVC capacity of 165,000 metric tons (t). Westlake says in its announcement that the unit has higher production costs than its other European PVC vegetation because of its “smaller scale and higher logistical burden.” The company will serve customers from its remaining German PVC vegetation, including a facility in Wilhelmshaven with 380,000 t of annual capacity, which it purchased from the insolvent Vynova this past June. Due to the Cologne closure, Westlake will record pretax charges to its earnings in upcoming quarters of $205 million. Energy costs have been growing to European chemical producers since the Iran War started at the end of February. Earlier this month, Ineos announced that it would close three acetyls vegetation in Hull, England. —Alex Tullo

The chemical maker Chemours has joined several automative sector groups in calling to a slower European phaseout of hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) refrigerants from automobile atmosphere-conditioning systems. Over the past several years, the sector has largely switched to HFOs, especially 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene (R-1234yf), to minimize the climate impact of refrigerant leakage compared with previous HFC refrigerants such as 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (R-134a). HFOs have a smaller greenhouse gaseous impact because they break down atmospheric. however a major breakdown product is trifluoroacetic acid, a per- and polyfluoroalkyl material (PFAS). Chemours and automakers say switching to non-PFAS refrigerants such as propane (R-290) and CO₂ (R-744) would take at least 13 years to light-duty electric vehicles and 20 years to all other vehicle types. —Craig Bettenhausen

Corteva Agriscience is set to complete the separation of its seed business as the independent firm Vylor on Oct. 1. Corteva shareholders will receive one share of Vylor stock to every share of their Corteva stock. Vylor, which claims to be the leading supplier of corn and soybean seeds in North America, will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol VYLR. The new firm had sales of $10.1 billion, about 58% of Corteva’s total, and operating income of $1.7 billion in 2025. —Alex Tullo

Police in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, have arrested a former Asahi Kasei employee to stealing confidential information and passing it to a Chinese company. The information was related to an Asahi latent curing agent, utilized to harden epoxy resins, and was given to Shandong Shengquan New Materials, Asahi says. The company promises to start civil proceedings against the former employee and Shandong Shengquan, demanding that the firm harm and restrain from using the confidential information. Asahi also plans to implement greater controls over its trade secrets. —Alex Tullo

The German specialty chemical maker Wacker Chemie has sold 2.2 million shares in the silicon wafer firm Siltronic, netting proceeds of $194 million. Wacker spun off Siltronic in 2015 and at the beginning of this year still owned 30.1% of the firm. A sale of Siltronic shares earlier this year brought in $211 million to Wacker. After the most recent sale, which represents about 6.7% of Siltronic’s equity, Wacker retains a 15% stake. Driven by tough business conditions in Europe, Wacker announced last year that it was cutting annual costs by about $350 million. —Alex Tullo

Syngenta is planning to emit a suite of items to farmers based on microRNA methodology. MicroRNAs are tiny, single-stranded RNA molecules that bind with messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to minimize the translation of mRNA into proteins. In environment, vegetation can consumption microRNAs to better respond to stresses like drought. Syngenta says its microRNA items will provide farmers with a biological option to increase yields to rice, soy, corn, cotton, and other crops. The first items will be available in 2027. Other firms are also hoping to consumption microRNAs to agriculture. In July, Micropep Technologies, one of C&EN’s 10 Start-Ups to Watch in 2022, submitted to US and European regulatory approval of micropeptide items that stimulate production of microRNAs in vegetation. —Matt Blois

The start-up Refinyx is acquiring a recycling business from Northvolt, a Swedish battery producer that filed to bankruptcy in 2025. The new company, founded by the team behind Northvolt’s recycling business, acquired a portfolio of 134 Northvolt patents and a 1,200 m2 recycling pilot plant in Västerås, Sweden. The methodology developed by Northvolt doesn’t go through a solvent-based products extraction measure, which Refinyx claims will help the firm compete with well-established Asian battery recyclers. Refinyx says it has already lined up a major customer in the US. Next, the company wants to expand its mineral recovery platform to create rare earths, phosphorus, and other minerals. Refinyx’s acquisition follows a similar move by veterans from the battery material firm Ascend Elements, who recently formed R3 Lithium to revive Ascend’s battery-recycling business. —Matt Blois

The lithium miner Century Lithium plans to build a chlor-alkali plant to supply chlorine to its planned lithium mining project in Nevada. The proposed plant, which would be in Utah or Nevada, will consumption saltwater and electricity to make 272–544 metric tons of chlorine per day. The plant will also make hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. The company uses HCl to extract lithium from claystone. Century also uses sodium hydroxide in its process. The company is also talking to additional customers who would buy excess supplies. —Matt Blois

Amid the continued boom in weight-loss drugs, the drug services firm CordenPharma has broken ground in North Augusta, South Carolina, to expand peptide manufacturing. The company plans to spend over $200 million to add 6,300 m2 of capacity to molecules and commercial drugs containing peptide-based active medical ingredients (APIs). The unit will contain equipment to solid- and fluid-phase peptide synthesis. “The expansion will support growing demand to peptide APIs utilized in therapies addressing obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other serious diseases,” CordenPharma says in a press emit. —Aayushi Pratap

The chairs of nine European Union–based medical companies have published an open letter claiming that the EU’s medical sector is in decline and that urgent change is necessary. The letter states that European drugmakers are losing their business to firms in the US and China, which have invested $600 billion in new drug research over the past 2 years. China now exceeds the EU in the number of clinical trials, medical patents, and new medicines, according to the letter. however the authors also claim that this direction could be reversed if the EU and national governments were to invest in new clinical trials and better protect European intellectual property. Investment in new medicines, they say, brings a sixfold return to the economy. Less than a week after the letter was published, the EU Council adopted its “pharma package,” which gives EU drugmakers greater market protections when developing new medicines. —Max Barnhart

Roche and its Genentech subsidiary have inked two deals, with Atavistik Bio and with Earendil Labs. Atavistik will consumption its AMPS platform to discover and develop small-molecule, allosteric therapies to cardiometabolic disease targets. The collaboration is worth up to $1.9 billion; Atavistik will receive $70 million up front. The other deal stipulates that Earendil will leverage its artificial intelligence–based drug discovery platform toward bispecific antibodies to oncology targets. The arrangement is possibly worth greater than $1.5 billion; Earendil will receive $55 million up front. —Sarah Braner

Novartis has bought the rights to a preclinical radioligand therapy from BoomRay, a radiopharma firm in China. The deal doesn’t specify the therapy, however BoomRay is eligible to up to $900 million in up front and milestone payments. Novartis has maintained a steady clip on partnerships and seems to prefer buying specific assets rather than entire firms. This deal is yet another example of Big Pharma’s growing interest in Chinese bioscience. —Sarah Braner