Saudi Organometallic Chemicals Co. (SOCC), a joint venture (JV) equally owned by Albemarle Netherlands B.V., a subsidiary of Albemarle Corp. (Baton Rouge, La.; www.albemarle.com) and Saudi Specialty Chemical Company, an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced today the…
Air Liquide (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com) recently started up the world’s largest helium purification and liquefaction unit, a turnkey project at Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. The new unit’s production capacity is approximately 38 million m3/yr of helium. The high technologies…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen; www.basf.com), the Linde Group (Munich; www.linde.com) and ThyssenKrupp AG (Essen, all Germany; www.thyssenkrupp.com) plan to develop an environmentally friendly and competitive basis for utilizing the climate gas carbon dioxide on an industrial scale. They aim to employ…
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) to protect workers from the serious health effects from occupational exposure to isocyanates. OSHA will develop an NEP to focus outreach efforts and inspections on specific…
Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com) has entered into a definitive agreement to form a joint venture (JV) with OJSC KuibyshevAzot (Moscow, Russia; www.kuazot.ru), in central Russia’s Samara region, to produce and sell industrial gases. The JV will produce on-site oxygen,…
When considering project proposals for new processes in the chemical process industries (CPI), capital equipment costs often become the primary focus. The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed examination of the total cost of process equipment and…
Borealis AG (Vienna, Austria; www.borealisgroup.com) says it has fully acquired GPN SA from the Total Group. GPN S.A. is France’s largest nitrogen fertilizer manufacturer. Borealis is already active in nitrogen fertilizers in Central Europe, as well as in France following…
For most engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) projects in the chemical process industries (CPI), the data sheets developed at the beginning of the process provide the “shopping lists” that guide the procurement group on the purchase of equipment, system packages, instruments and more.…
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) plans to build a new state-of-the-art facility to manufacture vanillin in Zhenjiang City, in China's Jiangsu Province, boosting its production capacities by 40% and enabling the Group to better serve the fast-growing Asian market. Solvay…
Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.; www.eastman.com) broke ground on a capacity increase for its Therminol heat transfer fluids. The plant expansion, located in Newport, Wales, will be a new manufacturing facility capable of producing Therminol 66 and other biphenyl-based co-products.…