The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes started the second quarter on a strong note, rising 0.6 percent in April and following similar gains in March and February. Volumes have generally been…
Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com) plans a multi-million Swiss-franc investment by its Additives business to ensure local manufacturing in China of customized, high-end solutions for the plastics, coatings and inks industries. "This investment is another proof point of our commitment to…
CB&I (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.cbi.com) has been awarded a contract by PT Petrokimia Butadiene Indonesia (PBI), a Chandra Asri Petrochemical Group company, for the license and engineering design of three proprietary technologies in West Java, Indonesia. The scope of work…
Honeywell (Morris Plains, N.J.; www.honeywell.com) announced that it has started commercial operations at its new manufacturing plant in Geismar, La., to meet the growing global demand for its next-generation mobile air conditioning refrigerant based on hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs). With this startup,…
KBR, Inc. (Houston, www.kbr.com) announced that it has been awarded Operator Training Simulator (OTS) and Reliability Based Maintenance (RBM) services contracts by JSC EuroChem Northwest for their ammonia plant under construction in Kingisepp, Russia. The OTS will provide a cost-effective…
LyondellBasell (Rotterdam, the Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com) has broken ground on the first commercial Hyperzone polyethylene (PE) plant at its La Porte, Texas, complex. The plant will be capable of producing 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons [m.t.]) of high-density polyethylene (HDPE)…
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (Waltham, Mass.; www.thermofisher.com) and Patheon N.V., a leading global provider of high-quality drug development and delivery solutions to the pharmaceutical and biopharma sectors, announced that their boards of directors have approved Thermo Fisher’s acquisition of Patheon.…
Shortly after doubling its polycarbonate production capacity at its Shanghai site to 400,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr), Covestro AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.covestro.com) will again significantly expand its capacity to 600,000 m.t./yr. With this step, which is achieved through debottlenecking…
MilliporeSigma (Billerica, Mass.; www.emdmillipore.com) announced the opening of a new joint Process Scale-Up Lab in Bengaluru, India to provide end-to-end solutions from process development to scale-up manufacturing for pre-clinical, clinical and commercial supply. “Both MilliporeSigma and Stelis bring technological expertise and…
The industrial gases specialist Messer (Bad Soden/Frankfurt, Germany; www.messergroup.com) signed an agreement with Changsha Hi Tech Zone in Southern China’s Hunan province to set up a new 520 metric-ton-per-day (m.t./d) liquid air-separation unit (ASU), just beside its existing filling station…