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Air Liquide acquires large industrial-gas business in Malaysia

Air Liquide (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com) announced the acquisition of a key Malaysian industrial gas player, Southern Industrial Gases Sdn Bhd. This acquisition doubles Air Liquide’s Packaged Gases filling capacity in Malaysia. It is expected to deliver significant synergies by enlarging…

Kraton to sell its Cariflex polyisoprene business to Daelim

Kraton Corp. (Houston; www.kraton.com) announced that it has agreed to sell its Cariflex polyisoprene business unit to Daelim Industrial Co., Ltd. (Seoul, South Korea; www.daelim.co.kr/) for a purchase price of  $530 million. The transaction is expected to close in the…

Alpek to acquire Lotte PET plant in the U.K.

Alpek S.A.B. de C.V. (San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico; www.alpek.com) announced that one of its subsidiaries has signed an agreement with Lotte Chemical Corp. (Seoul, South Korea; www.lottechem.com) to acquire a100% stake in Lotte Chemical U.K. Ltd., which owns and…

Dow and Evonik join forces to commercialize new propylene glycol synthesis method

Dow (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) and Evonik Industries AG (www.evonik.com) have entered into an exclusive technology partnership. Together, they plan to bring a unique method for directly synthesizing propylene glycol (PG) from propylene and hydrogen peroxide to market maturity. The basis…

Digitalization Founded in Modern Process Control Strengthens Chemical Operations

Understanding how advanced process-control tools, such as edge computing, fit in with an overall digitalization strategy will help manufacturers to see sizable operational and financial performance improvements Today, many companies in the chemical process industries (CPI) are moving toward a…

Linde starts up two air-separation units at Taixing Jinyan ethylene oxide facility

Linde plc (Guildford, U.K.; www.linde.com) announced that it started up two plants to supply oxygen and nitrogen to Taixing Jinyan Chemical Technology Co., Ltd. (Taixing Jinyan) to support the production of ethylene oxide. The plants, with total combined production capacity…

TechnipFMC signs first commercial license for new epichlorohydrin process technology

TechnipFMC (Houston; www.technipfmc.com) announced that it has signed its first Eipcerol Technology License Agreement with Meghmani Finechem Ltd. (MFL) in India. The plant will produce 50,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of epichlorohydrin from glycerin, a renewable feedstock derived from…

Yokogawa and ExRobotics to collaborate on advancement of robotics for hazardous-area applications

ExRobotics B.V. (https://exrobotics.global), a Netherlands-based developer of robotics technology for hazardous environments, and Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo; www.yokogawa.com) announced the signing of a licensing agreement that will enable Yokogawa to sell and deploy ExRobotics' inspection robot hardware and software platforms…

Phillips 66 to add three new fractionator units at Sweeny site

Phillips 66 (Houston; www.phillips66.com) announced that it is expanding its Sweeny Hub in Texas with the addition of three fractionators, each with capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (bbl/d). Fracs 2 and 3 are anticipated to start up in the…

BP plans to pilot new PET-recycling process in Illinois

BP plc (London; www.bp.com) has developed an enhanced recycling technology, BP Infinia, that enables currently unrecyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste to be diverted from landfill or incineration and instead transformed back into new, virgin-quality feedstocks. BP plans to construct…