Latest News: Business
BASF doubles plasticizer capacity with startup of new plant in Ludwigshafen
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has doubled capacity of its non-phthalate plasticizer Hexamoll DINCH from 100,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) to 200,000 m.t./yr at its site in Ludwigshafen, Germany. With a second Hexamoll DINCH plant, BASF will satisfy growing…
Atlas Copco completes U.S. acquisitions
Atlas Copco’s (Stockholm, Sweden; www.atlascopco.com) U.S.-based Quincy Compressor LLC has finalized the acquisition of the compressor business of National Pump & Compressor Ltd. and McKenzie Compressed Air Inc. in the U.S. National Pump & Compressor’s business is located in Texas…
Toyo awarded contract for Petrobras ammonia plant
Toyo Engineering Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toyo-eng.co.jp), in cooperation with SOG - Oleo e Gas S.A., a leading engineering company in Brazil, has been awarded a contract from Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), a Brazilian state-run oil company. The contract involves construction…
Eni sells refining and marketing assets in Romania, Czech Republic and Slovakia to MOL Group
Eni S.p.A. (Rome; www.eni.it) has signed an agreement with oil-and-gas company MOL Group (Budapest, Hungary; www.mol.hu/en) for the sale of its 32.445% stake in ÄŒeská Rafinérská a.s. (CRC), a refining company in the Czech Republic. The transfer is subject to…
BASF and Sinopec to build a new NPG-production plant in Nanjing
BASF SE (Ludwogshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and Sinopec (Beijing, China; www.sinopec.com) will build a new world-scale production plant for Neopentylglycol (NPG) at their state- of-the-art Verbund site, BASF-YPC Co., a 50-50 joint venture in Nanjing, China. The plant, with a total…
H.B. Fuller opens adhesives manufacturing facility in Colombia
H.B. Fuller Co. (St. Paul, Minn.; www.hbfuller.com) has announced the opening of its new $10 million manufacturing facility to support the expansion of its business in the Andean Region of South America. The plant is located in Rionegro, approximately 36…
AkzoNobel inaugurates membrane-electrolysis plant in Germany
AkzoNobel N.V. (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) has inaugurated its new, highly efficient chlorine membrane electrolysis plant in the Rhein-Main area of Germany. The Frankfurt-based, state-of-the-art plant is the result of a major conversion and expansion project begun in 2011 and…
Air Products technology supplies gases for glass factory in Czech Republic
Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) has recently installed an air separation unit (ASU) for AGC Glass Europe, the world’s largest producer of flat glass. The state-of-the-art cryogenic Prism ON300 plant, now successfully operating at AGC’s Teplice factory in the…
BioAmber selected as principle supplier of bio-succinic acid for PTTMCC Biochem
BioAmber Inc. (www.bio-amber.com; Montreal, Canada), an industrial biotechnology company producing sustainable chemicals, has announced that it has signed its first take-or-pay contract for succinic acid. Under the terms of the agreement, BioAmber will be the principal supplier of bio-succinic acid…
Global chemical production rose in March, ACC data say
The Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) rose 0.4% in March, on a three-month-moving-average basis, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com). Production gains in the Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Africa and Middle East regions…