Akzo Nobel N.V. (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) has broken ground on its new powder coatings plant in Mumbai, India. The investment of €9 million will allow the company to increase capacity in the region, which forms an important part of…
Sadara Chemical Co. (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; www.sadara.com) started up its mixed-feed cracker (MFC) on August 28, 2016. The MFC is the only one of its kind in Saudi Arabia and will allow Sadara to produce a diversified range of plastics…
In a further step to expand its participation in the agricultural market in the Brazilian Midwest, Yara International ASA (Oslo, Norway; www.yara.com) announced the signing of an agreement for the acquisition of the fertilizers blending unit of Adubos Sudoeste in…
During the celebration of the five-year anniversary of the Lewabrane membrane-elements plant operated by IAB Ionenaustauscher GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of specialty chemicals company Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com), LANXESS also announced plans to double production capacity in the…
Yara International ASA (Oslo, Norway; www.yara.com) has officially opened the world’s first modular ammonium nitrate plant. The plant’s location is remote, in the desert-like landscape of Western Australia, northeast of Perth. Ammonium nitrate is the main component of explosives used…
Meridian Energy Group (Belfield, N.D.; www.meridianenergygroupinc.com) announced that the company has finalized a license agreement with Axens North America, Inc., a subsidiary of Axens (Rueill-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net), to define the underlying proprietary process technology for several of the refinery process…
Solvay SA (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) has inaugurated a new carbon-fiber production line at its Piedmont Facility in South Carolina, doubling production capacity of a key raw material to make carbon-fiber-reinforced composite materials and meeting increasing demand for lightweighting composite materials…
Royal DSM (Heerlen, the Netherlands; www.dsm.com) and specialty chemicals producer Zhejiang NHU Special Materials Co. (NHU) have officially inaugurated their joint venture (JV) company for polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compounds, DSM NHU Engineering Plastics (Zhejiang) Co Ltd. The JV, which was…
Albemarle Corp. (Baton Rouge, La.; www.albemarle.com) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate conversion assets and supporting business functions currently operated by Jiangxi Jiangli New Materials Science and Technology Co. Ltd. The transaction is…
Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; Tokyo, Japan; www.sdk.co.jp), JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. (JX), and LyondellBasell Group (LYB; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com) have reached final agreement concerning the sale and purchase of LyondellBasell’s shares in SunAllomer Ltd. (SunAllomer), a joint…