The plant engineering and construction company Uhde Inventa-Fischer (Domat/Ems, Switzerland; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) and Octal Petrochemicals, the largest PET resin manufacturer in the Middle East and the largest integrated PET sheet manufacturer in the world, successfully commissioned a polycondensation plant for the…
S.C. Poerner Romania S.r.l. (Bucharest), the Romanian subsidiary of the Pörner Group (Vienna, Austia; www.poerner.at), was awarded a contract by the Alexandria Mineral Oils Co. (AMOC) for the extension of the wax plate plant in Alexandria, Egypt. The scope of…
Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com) today announced the second expansion of its ethoxylation site at Clear Lake in Pasadena, Texas. Following the first expansion in 2012, now already fully utilized, the investment will provide the necessary further capacity to continue profitable…
Black & Veatch (Overland Park, Kan.; www.bv.com) and Exterran Energy Solutions, L.P. (Exterran) are joining forces to reduce capital and operating costs, improve natural gas liquid product yields and enhance system flexibility for natural gas processors. The two companies have…
CB&I (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.cbi.com) has been awarded a contract valued at approximately $1 billion by Ingleside Ethylene LLC, a joint venture between Occidental Chemical Corp., a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp., and Mexichem, S.A.B. de C.V. (Mexichem) for the…
Foster Wheeler AG (Zug, Switzerland; www.fwc.com) says that a subsidiary of its Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded a contract for engineering, procurement and related services for a grassroots molybdenum refinery in Chile. The contract was awarded by…
Bartec GmbH (Bad Mergentheim, Germany; www.bartec.de) has acquired Pixavi (Stavanger, Norway), a world leading supplier of mobile communication devices and wireless infrastructure for hazardous areas. The acquisition perfectly complements the Bartec product portfolio, which comprises explosion-proof components and systems, heating…
Low-grade nickel (less than 1.5 wt.%) laterite ores represent about 70% of global reserves but account for only 40% of nickel production. Increasing demand for nickel in recent years has created the need to process such ores. Atmospheric acid leaching…
Pilot plant operation has been completed for a process that produces the fertilizer potassium sulfate from the mineral polyhalite, a hydrated sulfate of potassium, magnesium and calcium. The process, developed by Intercontinental Potash Corp. (ICP; Golden, Colo.; www.icpotash.com), resurrects a…
The National Food Research Institute (NFRI) of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO; Tsukuba City, Japan; www.naro.affrc.go.jp) has developed an enzymatic pretreatment process for producing highly concentrated sugar solution from fibrous materials containing rice straw and starch. The…