When a process plant is set up, an owner has several things in mind; the market demand for his product and hence the plant capacity, the plant cost, the space availability, space for future expansion and so on. Once a…
Plant Watch Wacker invests €40 million to expand polymer site in China March 5, 2012 — Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) is expanding its polymer activities by investing around €40 million to build two new production facilities at its…
Production of major plastic resins in the U.S. was 6.2 billion lb in February, a total that is 11.9% higher than the same month last year, according to an analysis by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com). In…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed that companies be required to report to the agency all new uses, including domestic or imported products, of five groups of potentially harmful chemicals. The chemicals have been used in consumer products…
On March 13, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.; www.epa.gov) issued a “No Action Assurance (NAA) Letter” to area source facilities required to conduct boiler tune-up by March 21, 2012, under the Area Source Rule. This means…
Lucid Energy (Portland, Ore.; www.lucidenergy.com) today announced the commercial availability of its in-pipe hydropower system, known as the LucidPipe Power System. This renewable energy system enables large users of energy and water — such as municipal water and wastewater, agricultural…
Toyo Engineering Corp. (Toyo; Chiba, Japan; www.toyo-eng.co.jp) has been jointly awarded, with ENPPI — an engineering company under the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum — a contract to build a 460,000 ton/yr ethylene plant and a 20,000 ton/yr butadiene extraction plant…
Industrial biotechnology company Verenium Corp. (San Diego, Calif.; www.verenium.com) today announced it has closed a transaction with DSM Food Specialties B.V., a business group of Royal DSM (Heerlen, The Netherlands; www.dsm.com), in which Verenium has sold to DSM its oilseed…
OPX Biotechnologies Inc. (OPX; Boulder, Colo.; www.opxbio.com) today announced that the company has successfully demonstrated its fermentation process for bio-based acrylic acid at the 3,000-L scale. OPX is working with The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) to bring its…
“The member companies of Germany’s Large Industrial Plant Manufacturer’s Group (AGAB; Frankfurt am Main; www.grossanlagenbau.vdma.org) booked orders worth €24.9 billion in 2011, an 11% increase compared to the previous year (€22.4 billion in 2010)”, announced Helmut Knauthe, AGAB spokesman and…