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Air Products technology supplies gases for glass factory in Czech Republic  

Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) has recently installed an air separation unit (ASU) for AGC Glass Europe, the world’s largest producer of flat glass. The state-of-the-art cryogenic Prism ON300 plant, now successfully operating at AGC’s Teplice factory in the…

BioAmber selected as principle supplier of bio-succinic acid for PTTMCC Biochem

BioAmber Inc. (www.bio-amber.com; Montreal, Canada), an industrial biotechnology company producing sustainable chemicals, has announced that it has signed its first take-or-pay contract for succinic acid. Under the terms of the agreement, BioAmber will be the principal supplier of bio-succinic acid…

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BASF evaluates natural gas-based investment in the U.S.  

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) is evaluating an investment in a world-scale methane-to-propylene complex on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The on-purpose production of propylene to supply the company’s North American operations would allow BASF to take advantage of low gas…

TPC Group receives funding for third polyisobutylene unit

TPC Group Inc. (Houston; www.tpcgrp.com) has announced a significant milestone in its comprehensive expansion program to increase polyisobutylene capacity. In early 2013, TPC embarked on an expansion effort to both debottleneck existing capacity and build additional capacity.   TPC's Board…

LyondellBasell granted key permits for ethylene expansion project

LyondellBasell (Rotterdam, The Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com) has received a key permit required in the company's multi-plant ethylene expansion program which, when fully operational, is expected to increase annual ethylene capacity by an estimated 840,000 metric tons per yer (m.t./yr) for a…

Global chemical production rose in March, ACC data say

The Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) rose 0.4% in March, on a three-month-moving-average basis, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com).   Production gains in the Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Africa and Middle East regions…

Scale-up Guide reviewed by Fluor engineer

Industrial Process Scale-up: A Practical Innovation Guide from Idea to Commercial Implementation. By Jan Harmsen. Elsevier Inc., 225 Wyman St., Waltham, MA 02144. Web: elsevier.com. 2013. 112 pages. $64.95. Reviewed by Jim Gregory, Senior Process Engineer, Fluor, Greenville, S.C.  …

Udit Batra becomes president and CEO of EMD Millipore…

Batra McMillian McCairns Martin Boyle Udit Batra becomes president and CEO of EMD Millipore (Boston, Mass.), the Life Science Div. of Merck KGaA and a supplier of solutions for biopharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing.   Antwan McMillian is named manager…

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Plan and re-plan

FRI is lucky to have survived a simple valve-tray project. A few years ago, the low-pressure (LP) test column stood empty, because there were no trays ready to be installed. The intention was to install a set of new valve…

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Borealis invests in capacity expansion for crosslinked polyethylene, and more business news

Plant Watch Lanxess inaugurates new high-tech plastics plant in Brazil April 10, 2014 — Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) inaugurated its new high-tech plastics plant in Porto Feliz, Brazil. The company has invested around €20 million in the facility, which…