Union Carbide.

Union Carbide confirmed that Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical will build a 535,000 metric tons-per-year Unipol process polyethylene plant and a 260,000 metric tons-per-year Unipol process polypropylene plant, both next to Yanpet's petrochemicals complex in Yanbu, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Completion is set for early in the year 2000. Total Unipol polyethylene capacity at the complex will be 1.035 million metric tons, including an existing polyethelene unit started up in 1985. Union Carbide's wholly-owned subsidiary, Amerchol Corp., is constructing a plant in China to produce Amerchol's line of Ucare polymers. The facility, Amerchol's first in Asia, is located in Guangdong Province and is set for completion in July of 1997. The plant is a project of a Chinese equity joint venture in which an affiliate of Amerchol holds a majority interest. Amerchol's partner in the joint venture is Xiaolan Industrial Corp. of Guangdong Province. Union Carbide announced that Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical of China has been licensed with the Union Carbide/Kvaerner (formerly Davy) low pressure oxo technology to expand its oxo alcohols plant in China's Shandong Province. The expansion project, to be completed in 1999, will nearly double Sinopec Qilu's production of butyraldehydes from propylene and will subsequently increase the production of 2-ethylhexanol (2-EH) and normal and isobutanols. Capacity of 2-EH will increase to 85,000 metric tons and the butanols to 65,000 metric tons per year. The project is part of a capital expansion program underway by Sinopec Qilu, centered on an increase in olefins production to 450,000 metric tons per year.

Richardson Electronics, Ltd., announced the opening of an office in Osaka, Japan, in an effort to increase the frequency of customer visits and take greater advantage of the industrial RF and microwave heating business in western Japan.