Akzo Nobel N.V. (AkzoNobel; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) has completed the expansion of its Industrial Coatings site in Songjiang near Shanghai in China, doubling annual production capacity and creating the company’s biggest plant for packaging coatings in the world. …
As part of its ongoing commitment to innovation, The Dow Chemical Company (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) announced today that a new research and development (R&D) facility will be built in Lake Jackson, Texas, near its largest manufacturing site in Freeport, Texas.…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) has acquired Silbond Corp. (Weston, Mich.), a supplier of silicic acid esters. As a special group of functional silanes, silicic acid esters are used in a wide variety of applications, such as in the…
WorleyParsons Ltd. (North Sydney, Australia; www.worleyparsons.com) has been appointed to provide detailed engineering and procurement services for the tankfarm, piperack, and flare units of Phase 1 of the North West Redwater Partnership’s greenfield bitumen refinery project, located in Sturgeon County,…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will build a new world-scale production plant to manufacture specialty amines at its existing wholly-owned site in the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park in China. The plant, which is scheduled to come on stream in late…
Succinity GmbH (Düsseldorf, Germany; www.succinity.com), the joint venture between Corbion Purac and BASF for the production and commercialization of biobased succinic acid, has announced the successful start-up of its first commercial production facility. The plant, located at the Corbion Purac…
An American Scientist. By Gabor A. Somorjai with Mitch Jacoby. Archway Publishing. 1663 Liberty Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403. Web: archwaypublishing.com. 2013. 250 pages. $27.95. Reviewed by Scott Jenkins, Chemical Engineering magazine, New York, N.Y. For those working in the…
Plant Watch SNC-Lavalin wins contract for sulfuric-acid project in Saudi Arabia February 7, 2014 — SNC-Lavalin Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada; www.snclavalin.com), in consortium with Sinopec Engineering Group, has signed a contract with Ma’aden in Saudi Arabia to provide engineering, procurement,…
Festge Kerin Schuster DiBiano Self Novasep (Pompey, France), a supplier to the life sciences industry, welcomes Thierry Van Nieuwenhove as president of the company’s synthesis business unit. Robert Kumpf becomes CTO of specialty chemicals producer Elevance Renewable Sciences (Woodridge,…
Preliminary data for the December 2013 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; the most recent available) show a small increase (0.17%) in the overall index compared to the November final index value. The subindices for equipment all rose in December compared…