2014 Year in Review: September, October

Expansions, court rulings against price-fixers and more tire plants being built or planned for the U.S. were among the many news stories that the rubber industry produced in 2014. Here is a look at September and October.

Glacial Lakes Rubber & Plastics Inc. opens in Watertown, S.D.

Arsenal Capital Partners' operations Accella Performance Materials Inc. and Royal Adhesives & Sealants Canada L.L.C. buy companies.

Goodyear removes Ohio as a possible site for its next tire plant.

AirBoss of America Corp. lands $15.3 million in orders for specialty boots for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Automotive parts supplier Federal-Mogul Holdings Corp. plans to split into two separate, publicly held companies.

Footwear Industries of Tennessee Inc. opens a factory in Jefferson City, Tenn.

Bridgestone Corp., Michelin, Good-year and Continental A.G. head the list in Rubber & Plastics News'annual rankings of the world's tire manufacturers.

Lewis-Goetz & Co. buys Advanced Sealing Inc.

Liquid rubber and plastics maker Smooth-On Inc. moves to a larger facility in Easton, Pa.

Cooper Standard Holdings Inc. agrees to buy virtually all of Huayu-Cooper Standard Sealing Systems Co. Ltd. it doesn't already own.

Hungary wins out as the site of Apollo Tyres Ltd.'s new plant in Europe.

The International Tire Exhibition & Conference for tire makers, organized by Rubber & Plastics News, returns to its original home in Akron, attracting around 1,700 attendees for the three-day event.

Bridgestone Corp. decides to produce all its premium golf balls at its Covington, Ga., facility.

Denka Corp. expects to complete a carbon black plant construction in Chiba, Japan, that it began earlier in the year to be concluded by spring 2015.

Trelleborg Industrial Solutions agrees to sell its light vehicle rubber boot operation in Pamplona, Spain, to Delmon Industrie S.A.

Mesnac Co. Ltd. acquires Fushun Yikesi New Material Co. Ltd. and will expand a research center in Slovak Republic.

Cyclonaire Corp. spends $2.1 million to expand its U.S. factory.

Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Northwest Rubber L.L.C. completes construction of a radial passenger tire plant in China.

Evonik Corp. finishes an expansion of its precipitated silica factory in Chester, Pa.

PanAridus L.L.C. ships its first bale of tire-grade guayule rubber.

Imbalance in supply and demand looms as a major problem for synthetic rubber producers, warns participants in the industry.

Sampla Belting North America L.L.C. expands in the U.S. and Canada.

Bridgestone Americas opens its guayule research center in Mesa, Ariz.

After pleading guilty in a price-fixing scandal for parts sold to Japanese auto makers, Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. agrees to pay a $26 million fine.

Bridgestone Corp. finishes the relocation of its truck and bus radial tire plant in Shenyang, China.

Giti Tire Group picks a site in Uniontown, Ohio, south of Akron, for its research and development center.

Polymer Conversions Inc. launches its Silikon Technologies L.L.C. division.

Bridgestone Americas opens its guayule research center in Mesa, Ariz.

Natural rubber prices fall to levels that force farmers in Southeast Asia to stop tapping trees.

Continental A.G. begins building test tires made from rubber derived from the latex of dandelions.

Goodyear claims it is producing fuel-efficient tires by using rice husk waste once destined for landfills.

Dunlop Aircraft Tyres Ltd. aims to open its first retreading facility in the U.S. by early 2016.

Momentive Performance Materials Inc.'s reorganization following a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing moves ahead, despite complaints from creditors.

Rubber and urethane products maker UTEX Industries Inc. plans to consolidate its Singapore operation by building a facility by the end of the year.

A possible butadiene shortage could boost prices for some synthetic rubbers.

An NBC News report revives a long-running controversy over recycled crumb rubber artificial turf.

Sudhin Datta, a senior research associate at ExxonMobil Chemical, wins the ACS Rubber Division Charles Goodyear Medal.

Lion Copolymer Holdings L.L.C. is re-entering the SBR business with a planned purchase of Ashland Chemical Inc.'s emulsion SBR facility in Port Neches, Texas.

Huntsman Corp. buys the performance additives and titanium dioxide businesses of Rockwood Holdings Inc. and plans to add a methylene diphenyl diisocyanate facility in Geismar, La.

Parker Hannifin Corp. opens an innovation center at its Parflex Division headquarters in Ravenna, Ohio.

After buying a majority stake in Northeast Tire Mold Inc. earlier this year, Greatoo Inc. plans an expansion.

Lord Corp. nears completion of a larger, upgraded building in Erie, Pa.

China's Chengshan Group Co. Ltd. plans to exercise its option to buy out Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.'s share of the two firm's joint venture in Chengshan, China, and Cooper later agrees to the sale.

TrelleborgVibracoustic moves to add a plant in Thailand.

Benecke-Kaliko Group expands its operation in Asia by starting to build a second plant in China.

Restoration Parts Group jumps into the rubber business by acquiring Soffseal Inc., a Cincinnati-based rubber manufacturer of seals and other parts.

Advanced Flexible Composites Inc. contemplates adding to its Lake in the Hills, Ill., operations.

Hankook Tire Co. Inc. breaks ground on an $800 million passenger and light truck tire plant in Tennessee.

An appeals court rejects Dow Chemical Co.'s plea and lets stand a $1.06 billion verdict against the company over a price-fixing case involving polyurethane chemicals.