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SAF Production Expands for a Low-Carbon Future

To lower their climate impact, petroleum refiners are increasingly assessing greenhouse-gas-emission intensities as they consider processing lower-carbon feedstocks. One area of particular activity is sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), where demand growth is accelerating While the oil-and-gas industry has been on…

BASF and thyssenkrupp Uhde optimize STAR process dehydrogenation technology and demonstrate significant sustainability benefits

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen) and thyssenkrupp Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, both Germany) achieved measurable improvements in the STAR process, a proprietary dehydrogenation process from thyssenkrupp Uhde  that can produce propylene from propane feedstocks, or iso-butylene from iso-butane feedstocks. The technology has been…

2022 CEPCI updates: February (prelim.) and January (final)

The preliminary value for the February 2022 CE Plant Cost Index (the most recent available) was higher than the previous month, continuing the steep monthly increases observed throughout 2021. The upward trend has been driven largely by equipment costs —…

2022 CEPCI updates: February (prelim.) and January (final)

The preliminary value for the February 2022 CE Plant Cost Index (the most recent available) was higher than the previous month, continuing the steep monthly increases observed throughout 2021. The upward trend has been driven largely by equipment costs —…

MOL Group acquires plastics recycling company ReMat

MOL Group (Budapest, Hungary; www.molgroup.info) acquired ReMat Zrt., a recycler with production plants located in Tiszaújváros and Rakamaz, Hungary, and a logistics hub in Bratislava, Slovakia. ReMat is a market leading plastics recycler in Hungary with an annual processing capacity…

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Business News: April 2022

Plant Watch Repsol begins construction of Cartagena biofuels plant March 8, 2022 — Repsol S.A. (Madrid, Spain; www.repsol.com) began construction work on the first advanced biofuels plant in Spain at the company’s Cartagena refinery, which will produce fuels using waste…

Evonik expands capacities for petrochemical specialties

Evonik (Marl, Germany; www.evonik.com) has invested a double-digit million euro sum to increase production capacity for isobutene derivatives at its Marl location. The isobutene part of the C4 production network produces the petrochemical specialties tertiary butanol (TBA), di-isobutene (DiB) and…

MOL Petrochemicals lays foundation for new propylene plant

An official foundation stone-laying ceremony of the new propylene plant of MOL Petrochemicals Co. Ltd. (Tiszaújváros, Hungary; www.molgroupchemicals.com), took place in Tiszaújváros, Hungary today. The plant is built as a greenfield investment for 65 billion HUF and will produce 100,000…

Clariant joins Renewable Carbon Initiative

Specialty chemicals company Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com) today announced that it has joined the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI). The aim of the RCI is to support and accelerate the transition from the use of fossil carbon to the use of…

CEPCI Annual Average Value Rises Precipitously from Last Year

The value of the 2021 Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Index (CEPCI), calculated as an average of the monthly values for the year, was higher than the annual value for 2020 by a large margin, as the CEPCI has risen each…