Ascend Performance Materials (Houston, Tex.; www.ascendmaterials.com) today announced it has completed its acquisition of Italian firms Poliblend and Esseti Plast. With this purchase, Ascend expands its portfolio into other engineered plastics, recycled resins and masterbatches. “Poliblend and Esseti Plast complement…
In March of this year, the World Health Organization declared the Novel Coronavirus Disease, COVID-19, a pandemic. Now, six months later, we are still deep in the grips of this crisis as we experience its far-reaching effects and navigate how…
Plant Watch Phillips 66 to transform refinery into world’s largest renewable-fuels plant August 13, 2020 — Phillips 66 (Houston; www.phillips66.com) plans to reconfigure its petroleum refinery in Rodeo, Calif. to produce renewable fuels from used cooking oil, fats, greases and…
Understanding project risks is critical to arriving at useful cost estimates. Since each capital project in the chemical process industries (CPI) is somewhat unique, it can be difficult for engineers and project leaders to price risks in their estimates and…
This column is based on “Polypropylene Carbonate Production – Cost Analysis,” a report published by Intratec. It can be found at: www.intratec.us/analysis/polypropylene-carbonate-production-cost. Polypropylene carbonate (PPC) is a thermoplastic polymer produced from the catalyzed copolymerization of carbon dioxide (CO2) and propylene…
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), rose by 2.5 percent in August on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis following a 3.0 percent gain in July. On…
According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (U.S. CPRI) rose by 0.8 percent in July following a 1.6 percent decline in June and a 2.0 percent decline in May. During July,…
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that with continued recovery in the U.S. economy, U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes rebounded by 1.9 percent in July, off from a strong revised 4.6 percent gain in June, a revised…
The following is a list of recently published books with relevance to the chemical process industries (CPI): Trevor Kletz Compendium: How his Best Process Stories are Still Relevant Today. Andy Brazier, Fiona MacLeod, David Edwards and others, Elsevier Press, 2020,…
On this edition of the CE Podcast, senior editor Scott Jenkins talks to Hannah Davis, the blockchain project lead at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). She provides an explanation of what blockchain is, and describes use cases that are…