Mobile Navigation

Showa Denko acquires Hong Kong-based coatings company GMM Group

Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; Tokyo, Japan; www.sdk.co.jp) has decided to acquire all shares of the GMM Group, a specialty non-stick coating chemicals manufacturing company headquartered in Hong Kong, China, and concluded a stock purchase and sale agreement with GMM. GMM…

BASF to divest Inorganic Specialties business

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has entered into an agreement to sell its Inorganic Specialties business to Edgewater Capital Partners LP, of Cleveland, Ohio. Inorganic Specialties includes the Evans City, Pennsylvania, USA, production site and the Specialty Alcoholates, Boranes and…

Honeywell launches new research chemicals business

Honeywell (Morris Plains, N.J.; www.honeywell.com) announced the launch of a new business, Honeywell Research Chemicals, that will now include several brands and solvent and inorganic chemical products that were acquired from Sigma-Aldrich in December 2015. Honeywell Research Chemicals combines more…

Evonik announces capacity expansions for PLGA copolymers in the U.S. and Germany

Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) is expanding its production facilities in Birmingham (Alabama, USA) and Darmstadt (Germany). This will create additional capacity for the production of biodegradable polymers marketed globally under the brand names Resomer and Resomer Select. These…

Tesoro to acquire Western Refining in $4.1-billion deal

Tesoro Corp. (San Antonio, Tex; www.tsocorp.com) and Western Refining, Inc. (El Paso, Tex.; www.wnr.com) jointly announced a definitive agreement under which Tesoro will acquire Western at an implied current price of $37.30 per Western share in a stock transaction, representing…

Zachry wins contract for ExxonMobil Beaumont PE expansion

Zachry Group (San Antonio, Tex.; www.zachrygroup.com) has been chosen by ExxonMobil to support its Beaumont, Texas, 650,000-metric tons per year (m.t./yr) polyethylene (PE) expansion, which begins this quarter. Zachry will provide constructability and execution planning, electrical and instrumentation design, and…

Total and Corbion form bioplastics JV

Total S.A. (Paris; www.total.com) and Corbion (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.corbion.com) are joining forces to develop bioplastics by creating a 50-50 joint venture to produce and market polylactic (PLA) polymers. The two partners plan to build a world-class PLA polymerization plant…

BASF to implement stepwise capacity expansion for U.S. MDI production

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has started engineering for a stepwise capacity increase of its methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) production facilities at the company’s Verbund site in Geismar, Louisiana. Capacity will be increased incrementally from 300,000 metric tons per year…

Novozymes to establish enzyme-production facility near Mumbai

To accommodate business growth and a consequent increase in production and supply chain needs, Novozymes (Copenhagen, Denmark; www.novozymes.com) has obtained land on a longterm lease in the Patalganga industrial area near Mumbai on India’s west coast. With an initial investment…

GE Digital has acquired Bit Stew Systems

GE Digital (www.ge.com/digital) announced it has acquired Bit Stew Systems (Burnaby, B.C., Canada; www.bitstew.com) to bring its data intelligence capabilities to Predix and other industrial solutions. Bit Stew applies its machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to automate the…