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Pressure Vessel Field Manual Reviewed by Hargrave’s Kachelhofer

Pressure Vessels Field Manual: Common Operating Problems and Practical Solutions. By Maurice Stewart and Oran T. Lewis. Gulf Professional Publishing, 2 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1020, Houston, TX 77046. Web: gulfpub.com. 2013. 498 pages. $79.95. Reviewed by Keith Kachelhofer, Hargrave Engineers…

Steve Edwards becomes chairman, president and CEO of Black & Veatch…

  Uhrig Laborde Sielaff Scheu Festge   Bioformix, Inc. (Cincinnati, Ohio), a manufacturer of energy-efficient, sustainable polymer platforms, names Jeff Uhrig senior vice president of corporate strategy. Nadege Laborde becomes president of the industrial biotech business unit of Novasep (Pompey,…

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BASF produces first commercial volumes of bio-based butanediol, and more business news

Plant Watch Praxair starts up carbon-dioxide purification plant at Honeywell site December 10, 2013 — Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com) has started up its new carbon-dioxide (CO2) purification facility at the Honeywell Resins & Chemicals site in Hopewell, Va. Under…

Current Economic Trends

Preliminary data for the October 2013 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; the most recent available) show a slight (less than 0.1%) increase in the overall index, as well as small increases in most of the index subcategories. The Pipes, Valves…

Rosneft, Pirelli and Oil Techno to collaborate on synthetic rubber JV in Armenia

Rosneft, LLC (Moscow, Russia; www.rosneft.com), Pirelli Tyre Russia and Oil Techno have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with regard to establishing a styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) production joint venture (JV) in Armenia. The synthetic rubber JV will focus especially on…

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Outotec wins orders in Turkey  

Outotec (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) will deliver technology and services worth over €100 million to Cengiz Group for their Mazidagi and Samsun operations in Turkey. The orders include a roasting plant for pyrite concentrates, calcine leaching and solvent extraction plants, copper…

December CAB and November CPRIs are up, ACC says

The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB) reading (on a three-month moving average basis) in December strengthened from November, rising 0.1 points from 93.8 to 93.9, according to the latest Weekly Chemistry and Economic Report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington,…

Axiall selects Louisiana as site for proposed ethylene cracker

Axiall Corp. (Atlanta, Ga.; www.axiall.com) today announced that the company has selected the state of Louisiana as the location of a possible ethylene cracker to be built in conjunction with a related derivatives plant. Axiall proposes to construct the facility…

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Foster Wheeler awarded contract for hydrogen reformers in Vietnam  

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 two Terrace Wall hydrogen reformers by GS Engineering & Construction Corp., which is acting on behalf of…

Braskem announces acquisition of Solvay Indupa

Braskem S.A. (Sao Paulo, Brazil; www.braskem.com.br) has announced the execution of an agreement with Grupo Solvay for the acquisition of 70.59% of the total and voting capital of Solvay Indupa S.A.I.C. The transaction price is $290 million. The consummation of…