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Vencorex announces plans for isocyantes expansion in the U.S., France and Thailand

Vencorex (Saint-Priest, France; www.vencorex.com) is expanding its capacity of aliphatic isocyanates to further strengthen the company’s positions worldwide.  Several industrial projects will enhance the ability to serve the growing market for years to come.   Vencorex’s objective is to strengthen…

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Messer to build third ASU in Vietnam  

Messer Group (Bad Soden/Frankfurt, Germany; www.messergroup.com) is building its third gasses production plant in Vietnam. The new contract for oxygen and nitrogen that Hoa Phat Steel, the largest steel producer in Vietnam, signed in October with Messer, will run for…

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BASF and Toda Kogyo form JV for cathode-active materials  

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and Toda Kogyo Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.todakogyo.co.jp), an industry leader in the development and manufacture of cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, have agreed to form a joint venture (JV) for cathode active materials (CAM) in…

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Clariant divests its Energy Storage Business to Johnson Matthey  

Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com) has agreed to divest its Business Line Energy Storage to Johnson Matthey Plc. (London; www.matthey.com). The total consideration of the sale amounts to $75 million at closing which is expected early 2015. The Energy Storage business…

DSM polymerization plant to be built in Augusta, Ga.

Royal DSM (Heerlen, the Netherlands; www.dsm.com) today announces that its new polymerization plant will be built in Augusta, GA. The investment was accounted earlier this year and now a location has been confirmed. The plant, which will become part of…

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Cristal to acquire TiO2 assets of Jiangxi Tikon  

The National Titanium Dioxide Co. (Cristal; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; www.cristal.com) has entered into an agreement to acquire the titanium dioxide assets of Jiangxi Tikon Titanium Co. The Jiangxi Tikon manufacturing facility is located in the city of Fuzhou in Jiangxi…

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BASF to increase production capacity for t-butylamine plant in Nanjing  

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will expand the production capacity of its existing world-scale production plant for t-butylamine (tBA) at the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park in China. The company plans to increase the existing production capacity by 60%, from 10,000…

CAB suggests stronger headwinds for U.S. economy, ACC says

The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), featured a slight decline of 0.1% in October, which is a deceleration from the 0.1% gain in September, as measured on…

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Outotec to modernize Norilsk Nickel’s smelter in Russia  

Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has been awarded a contract by JSC MMC Norilsk Nickel to modernize and rebuild Norilsk Nickel’s nickel flash-smelting furnace at Nadezhda smelter in Norilsk, Russia. The contract value in these types of total rebuilds is…

Yokogawa and Murata form alliance for development of wireless-device communication modules

Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan; www.murata.com) and Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.yokogawa.com) announce that they have reached an agreement whereby they will cooperate in the development of communication modules for field wireless devices used in plants. Under the…