Latest News: Business
Commercial production begins at Solazyme Bunge Renewable Oils plant in Brazil
Solazyme, Inc. (South San Francisco, Calif.; www.solazyme.com), a renewable oil and bioproducts company, today announced that its joint venture with Bunge Global Innovation LLC (“Bunge”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bunge Ltd. (White Plains, N.Y.; www.bunge.com), has successfully produced its first…
Dow awards Fluor EPC contract for Saudi RO-membrane manufacturing facility
The Dow Chemical Company (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) has awarded Fluor Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.fluor.com) the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for its reverse osmosis (RO) manufacturing facility in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Located in Jubail Industrial City II…
Westlake acquires German PVC producer Vinnolit
Westlake Chemical Corp. (Houston; www.westlake.com) has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Germany-based Vinnolit Holdings GmbH and its subsidiary companies from Advent International, a private equity firm. Vinnolit is an integrated global leader in specialty polyvinyl…
Clariant and Siemens collaborate on coal-gasification technologies
Clariant AG (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com) has announced that it has signed an agreement with Siemens Fuel Gasification Technology to cooperate in the commercialization of a new, jointly developed sour-gas shift (SGS) technology for coal gasification. The agreement appoints Clariant as…
Economic expansion expected through year’s end, ACC’s CAB suggests
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), has reached its highest peak since February 2008, while also posting its highest year-over-year gain since September 2010. Measured on a…
Sabic and SK Global form polyethylene joint venture
Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com) and the Korean petrochemical company, SK Global Chemical, have signed a 50-50 joint venture agreement in Seoul, South Korea for a total investment of $595 million to manufacture a range of…
Ineos to supply electrolyzer technology to HF Chlor-Alkali
Ineos Technologies (Rolle, Switzerland; www.ineos.com) has announced that it is supplying four BICHLOR bipolar electrolyzers to HF Chlor-Alkali’s new plant located in Eddyville, Iowa. The new plant will supply caustic soda, muriatic acid and bleach to an adjacent food-processing facility,…
BASF to build new PAG plant in Ludwigshafen
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) today announced the construction of a new plant for polyalkylene glycol (PAG)-based lubricants at its Ludwigshafen site. The manufacturing facility will start operations by the beginning of 2016 and produce PAG lubricant base stocks and…
Jacobs awarded contract for chlorine dioxide plant in Indonesia
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Pasadena, Calif.; www.jacobs.com) has announced that it was awarded a contract by P.T. OKI Pulp and Paper Mills (Jakarta, Indonesia) for the design and supply of an integrated chlorine dioxide plant for its pulp mill project…
Celanese to build emulsions plant in southeast Asia
Celanese Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.celanese.com) has announced its intent to construct a vinyl acetate ethylene (VAE) emulsions production unit in Southeast Asia. The unit is expected to begin production by mid-2016. "This proposed expansion will support our global and…