Latest News: Business
Clariant and Wilmar receive clearance to establish JV
Clariant International Ltd. (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com), a specialty chemicals producer, and Wilmar International Ltd., an Asian agribusiness group, have received the relevant merger clearances for the establishment of their 50-50 joint venture (JV) called “the global amines company”, which is…
Shanxi Coking Co. to use Unipol technology from Dow
Shanxi Coking Co. Ltd., has signed a license agreement for Unipol Polypropylene (PP) Process Technology with Union Carbide Chemicals & Plastics Technology LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company (Dow; Midland, Mich., www.dow.com). Shanxi Coking is the…
Saudi Organometallic JV starts up Triethylaluminum facility
Saudi Organometallic Chemicals Co. (SOCC), a joint venture (JV) equally owned by Albemarle Netherlands B.V., a subsidiary of Albemarle Corp. (Baton Rouge, La.; www.albemarle.com) and Saudi Specialty Chemical Company, an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced today the…
Air Liquide starts up world’s largest helium unit in Qatar
Air Liquide (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com) recently started up the world’s largest helium purification and liquefaction unit, a turnkey project at Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. The new unit’s production capacity is approximately 38 million m3/yr of helium. The high technologies…
German R&D project to develop environmentally sustainable syngas production
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen; www.basf.com), the Linde Group (Munich; www.linde.com) and ThyssenKrupp AG (Essen, all Germany; www.thyssenkrupp.com) plan to develop an environmentally friendly and competitive basis for utilizing the climate gas carbon dioxide on an industrial scale. They aim to employ…
OSHA announces new program for occupational exposure to isocyanates
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) to protect workers from the serious health effects from occupational exposure to isocyanates. OSHA will develop an NEP to focus outreach efforts and inspections on specific…
Praxair enters into industrial gas JV with Kuibyshevazot
Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com) has entered into a definitive agreement to form a joint venture (JV) with OJSC KuibyshevAzot (Moscow, Russia; www.kuazot.ru), in central Russia’s Samara region, to produce and sell industrial gases. The JV will produce on-site oxygen,…
Borealis acquires GPN and majority of Rosier European market
Borealis AG (Vienna, Austria; www.borealisgroup.com) says it has fully acquired GPN SA from the Total Group. GPN S.A. is France’s largest nitrogen fertilizer manufacturer. Borealis is already active in nitrogen fertilizers in Central Europe, as well as in France following…
Solvay boosts vanillin production capacity with new facility in China
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) plans to build a new state-of-the-art facility to manufacture vanillin in Zhenjiang City, in China's Jiangsu Province, boosting its production capacities by 40% and enabling the Group to better serve the fast-growing Asian market. Solvay…
Eastman to expand heat transfer fluid capacity in Wales
Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.; www.eastman.com) broke ground on a capacity increase for its Therminol heat transfer fluids. The plant expansion, located in Newport, Wales, will be a new manufacturing facility capable of producing Therminol 66 and other biphenyl-based co-products.…