ithin one month in the fall, major facility projects in India were announced by 3M, Honeywell, Linde Group and PepsiCo — all IAMC member companies. Topping it all off before Thanksgiving was the signing of a memorandum in Washington that commits the U.S. and Indian governments to undertake relevant activities through their respective Invest in America and Invest India programs that are designed to strengthen bilateral investment ties, expand business cooperation between U.S. and Indian enterprises, and enhance economic growth opportunities.

Linde said it will build a new US$125-million air separation unit at Tata Steel's currently expanding steel making plant in Jamshedpur. 3M will establish a new R&D lab in Bangalore, its 36th such facility globally, which is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2010. Honeywell Specialty Materials will invest $34 million and hire 100 for a new 400,000-sq.-ft. (37,160-sq.-m.) technology center on the existing Honeywell property in Gurgaon.

"This center will allow us to conduct development closer to our end customers, while at the same time tapping the recognized engineering talent of India," said Andreas Kramvis, president and CEO of Honeywell Specialty Materials. "It will strengthen our product and process commercialization capabilities globally, but especially in Asia, where it will complement our existing research center in Shanghai, China."
The center will be managed by UOP India Private Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of UOP that has an existing 250-person process technology engineering center in Gurgaon. Honeywell's employee base in India has grown from 1,000 employees in 2002 to more than 10,000 today. Honeywell earlier this year opened a $50-million research, development and engineering facility in Bangalore, its second in that city.

On Nov. 20, PepsiCo, just prior to a state visit to the White House by India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, announced it would invest in three new beverage plants and one new foods plant in India by 2012, at locations yet to be determined. The company currently has 43 bottling plants and three Frito-Lay food plants in the nation, and has invested more than $1 billion in India since entering the market 19 years ago.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration led November trade missions of 11 U.S. aerospace companies and 15 clean technology companies to India. In 2008, India ranked as the 17th largest U.S. export market, with exports worth $17.7 billion. Planned trade missions in 2010 will highlight opportunities in solar energy, and medical products and services. For further trade mission information, visit www.buyusa.gov/india.

— Adam Bruns

ith a $1-billion investment, Alcoa has more than doubled capacity at its Alumar alumina refinery in Maranhão state outside São Luis, Brazil. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was among the dignitaries on hand to inaugurate the expansion on December 11.

Alumar is jointly owned by Alcoa Aluminio and Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals/AWAC (54 percent), BHP Billiton (36 percent) and Rio Tinto Alcan (10 percent). Alcoa manages the facility. The AWAC share of the Alumar refinery expansion will be supplied by the recently completed billion-dollar AWAC Juruti bauxite mine.

"We accomplished this expansion at competitive cost, employing local workers and suppliers and incorporating state-of-the-art technology, which places the Alumar alumina refinery as one of the lowest cost refineries in the world," said Franklin L. Feder, president of Alcoa Latin America and Caribbean. "And our ramp-up activities are going extremely well so this low-cost production will be utilized quickly."

According to Alcoa, at the peak of the expansion construction, Alumar hired up to 13,000 workers, approximately 70 percent of them Maranhão natives, and 30 percent from São Luis. When the milestone of 20 million work hours completed with no lost day incidents was reached, the project became a global labor safety benchmark.

Coca-Cola inaugurated a dried tea plant in Brazil in November. Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent attested to the company's 50-fold sales volume increase in the country over the past 25 years. Coke plans to invest $5.8 billion in Brazil over the next five years.

— Adam Bruns

n November 2009, Novartis inaugurated the United States’ first ever large-scale flu cell culture vaccine and adjuvant manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, N.C. Total investment in the facility comes to nearly US$1 billion, through a partnership between Novartis and the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Cell culture technology for influenza vaccines is not yet approved in the U.S. But part of the HHS contract support for Holly Springs includes funding for the development of a flu cell culture vaccine. If licensed in an emergency, the facility will be ready to respond to a pandemic as early as 2011. The plant is planned to be running at full-scale commercial production in 2013.