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 0.6 percent in December, following a 0.3 percent gain in November and a 0.4 percent decline in October. During December,…
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), posted a 0.3 percent decline in January on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. This marks the barometer's third consecutive month-over-month…
The preliminary value for the November 2018 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; most recent available) remained the same as the previous month’s value, although the final value for October was downwardly revised by a tenth of a point. The Equipment,…
Azerbaijan´s state energy company SOCAR recently held an opening ceremony for its new Biturox plant in the Heydar Aliyev Refinery near Baku, Azerbaijan. EPCM-Engineering Partner Pörner and SOCAR announced a successful commissioning as first part of the refinery reconstruction. SOCAR…
Shell Chemical LP (Houston, Tex.; www.shell.us) today announced the start of production of the fourth alpha-olefins (AO) unit at its Geismar, La. chemical manufacturing site. The 425,000-ton/yr capacity expansion brings total AO production at Geismar to more than 1.3 million…
The following is a list of recently published books of relevance for chemical process industries (CPI) professionals Picturing Science and Engineering: A guide to making scientific photographs for presentations, journal submissions and covers. By Felice C. Frankel, MIT Press,…
As chemical engineers, many of us work on developing new processes or improving current ones, often with goals of better efficiency, new or improved products and more sustainability. Taking concepts and laboratory work to a commercial scale requires significant effort,…
Plant Watch Neste moves forward with expansion of renewable products in Singapore December 12, 2018 — Neste Corp. (Espoo, Finland; www.neste.com) plans to add production capacity for renewable products at its existing facilities in Singapore. The approximately €1.4-billion investment will…
A methodology and examples for estimating equipment costs are presented Engineers have the responsibility to create projects having attractive returns on investment and to create economically sound designs — designs that produce high-quality, competitively priced products. This requires the technical…
The preliminary value for the October 2018 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; most recent available) fell slightly compared to the previous month’s value. The decrease reversed an upward trend that had been ongoing throughout 2018. The Equipment, Buildings and Engineering…