McDermott International, Inc. (Houston; www.mcdermott.com) and CB&I (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.cbi.com) announced that the companies have agreed to combine in an all-stock transaction to create a premier fully vertically integrated onshore-offshore company, with a broad engineering, procurement, construction and installation…
Técnicas Reunidas S.A. (TR; Madrid, Spain; www.tecnicasreunidas.es) has been selected by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) for the execution of a modernization project at the Heydar Aliyev petroleum refinery in Baku, Azerbaijan. The aim of this project…
Sibur (Moscow; www.sibur.com) has launched a terephthalic acid production upgrade at the POLIEF Blagoveshchensk site to expand its capacity to 350,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr). The project seeks to improve the site’s production efficiency and environmental safety. Terephthalic acid is…
AkzoNobel’s Specialty Chemicals business (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) is studying plans to expand production of high-purity vacuum salt at its Delfzijl site in the Netherlands. The project would increase output at the facility by around 25%. The ongoing study is…
Celanese Corporation (Dallas, Tex.; www.celanese.com) announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Celanese to acquire Omni Plastics and its subsidiaries, including the distributor Resinal de Mexico. Omni Plastics is headquartered and has a compounding facility in Evansville, Indiana, with…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and SINOPEC (Beijing, China; www.sinopecgroup.com) will expand the production capacity of Neopentylglycol (NPG) at the state-of- the-art Verbund site, BASF-YPC Co., Ltd. (www.basf-ypc.com.cn), a 50-50 joint venture in Nanjing, China. The plant was established in…
The Chemical Activity Barometer, a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), expanded 0.6 percent in December on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis and 0.4 percent on an unadjusted basis. The CAB is…
The preliminary value for the October CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; most recent available) increased compared to the previous month’s value for the fifth consecutive month. Increases in October for the Equipment and Buildings subindexes offset small decreases in the…
International automotive manufacturer Groupe PSA has chosen the Dürr Group (Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany; www.durr.com) as a primary supplier in its global network. The core supplier status was announced during a management meeting between the two companies at Dürr’s headquarters in Germany.…
W.R. Grace & Co. (Columbia, Md.; www.grace.com) today signed an agreement to acquire the Polyolefin Catalysts business of Albemarle Corporation (Charlotte, N.C.; www.albemarle.com) for $416 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018, subject to…