Plant Watch SNC-Lavalin wins contract for sulfuric-acid project in Saudi Arabia February 7, 2014 — SNC-Lavalin Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada; www.snclavalin.com), in consortium with Sinopec Engineering Group, has signed a contract with Ma’aden in Saudi Arabia to provide engineering, procurement,…
Festge Kerin Schuster DiBiano Self Novasep (Pompey, France), a supplier to the life sciences industry, welcomes Thierry Van Nieuwenhove as president of the company’s synthesis business unit. Robert Kumpf becomes CTO of specialty chemicals producer Elevance Renewable Sciences (Woodridge,…
Preliminary data for the December 2013 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; the most recent available) show a small increase (0.17%) in the overall index compared to the November final index value. The subindices for equipment all rose in December compared…
In January, U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes fell 0.7%, according to the latest Weekly Chemistry and Economic Report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com). The decline in January follows a 1.1% gain in December and a 0.5%…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and Kemira Oyj (Helsinki, Finland; www.kemira.com) announced today that Kemira will acquire BASF’s global alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) emulsion business. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2014. “Kemira is a…
ABB (Zurich, Switzerland; www.abb.com) officially inaugurated its fifth factory in Brazil in the presence of the Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Mauro Borges, and the Governor of São Paulo Geraldo Alckmin. The new plant is part of a…
Huntsman Corp. (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.huntsman.com) held an inauguration ceremony to mark the official opening of its new thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) production facility at the Jinshan Second Industry Zone in Shanghai, China. The 21,000-m2 plant, which cost $20 million,…
JGC Corp. (Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.co.jp) has signed a license agreement for its proprietary hydrogen sulfide and sodium sulfide production-process technology with Zhejiang Engineering Design Co. (ZED) in China, to serve as a proxy for licensing the technology to Chinese clients.…
ZeoGas LLC (Houston; www.zeogas.com) secures MegaMethanol technology license from Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions, a subsidiary of Air Liquide Group (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com). When completed, the production capacity of the licensed facility will be 5,000 metric tons (m.t.) per day…
Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; Tokyo, Japan; www.sdk.co.jp) has decided to increase its capacity for high-purity nitrous oxide (N2O), a specialty gas for semiconductor production, by cooperating with Dooam Industrial (Dooam), of South Korea. Dooam is headquartered in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province.…