Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.cpchem.com) held a groundbreaking ceremony for its U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC) Petrochemicals Project at the Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Tex. The groundbreaking ceremony signifies the start of construction for the USGC…
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) has completed the acquisition of the specialty chemical assets of ERCA Química, Ltda. in Brazil, enabling the group to more than double its surfactant production capacity in the country and to expand its access to…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has agreed with Orbite Aluminae Inc. on the delivery of a new calcination system for Orbite's high-purity alumina production facility located in Cap-Chat, Québec. The contract value is below €10 million and it has been…
Synthos Group S.A. (Oswiecim, Poland; www.synthosgroup.com) is planning to build a neodymium polybutadiene rubber plant in Triunfo Petrochemical Complex in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The investment will be carried out provided that the 2013 contracts on raw material supplies…
Ill Travers Wang Buscher Thuerig Bühler Aeroglide (Cary, N.C.), a manufacturer of engineered thermal-process systems, names Hans-Jörg Ill president and CEO. Detlev Rose becomes chief sales officer at Beumer Group GmbH & Co. KG (Beckum, Germany) a manufacturer of packaging,…
Aspen Technology, Inc. (Burlington, Mass.; www.aspentech.com), a provider of software and services to the process industries, announced it has acquired the Sulsim sulfur simulation software from Sulphur Experts Inc.(www.sulphurexperts.com). The Sulsim sulfur-recovery product has been used by the world’s leading…
Plant Watch ExxonMobil to construct butyl rubber and hydrocarbon resin plants in Singapore March 6, 2014 — ExxonMobil Chemical Co. (Houston; www.exxonmobilchemical.com) plans to build facilities to manufacture halobutyl rubber and hydrogenated hydrocarbon resin at its petrochemical complex in Singapore.…
The annual 2013 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI) is available, and stands at 3.0% lower than the 2012 annual average value. However, the initial numbers for 2014 (January 2014 preliminary) generally increased from the final December index values from…
The piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) is often considered to be the gold standard for the proper design, operation and maintenance of plants in the chemical process industries (CPI), including chemical, oil-and-gas facilities, mining operations, food-processing plants, and water- and…
Brenntag AG (Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany; www.brenntag.com) has acquired Gafor Distribuidora Ltd, a distributor of specialty solvents in Latin America, which is part of Grupo Gafor headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The largest industries being served by Gafor are…