Business & Economics
MHI awarded FEED contract for Hydrogen Energy California project
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo; www.mhi.co.jp) has been awarded a contract to perform the front-end engineering and design (FEED) services for the gasification and power island of the Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) project. Funded in part by the U.S.…
Lanxess investing in its French production site for tire rubbers
Lanxess AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.lanxess.com) is investing in its production site for high-performance rubber in Port Jérôme, France. The Group plans to invest some EUR 30 million by 2015 to further enhance productivity and energy efficiency. Lanxess produces the high-performance…
ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe invests in environmental protection
ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG (Duisburg, Germany; www.thyssenkrupp-steel-europe.com) has modernized the continuous annealing line at its Dortmund site. Thanks to investment of around €30 million, nitrogen oxide emissions from the line will be reduced by half, further improving the environmental situation…
GAIL selects Axen’s AlphaButol technology
A new ethylene dimerization unit, using Axens’ (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) AlphaButoltechnology will be installed at the petrochemical complex of GAIL (India) Ltd at Pata. The unit will have a production capacity 20,000 ton/yr of high purity 1-butene. Based on homogeneous…
EPA promotes safer alternatives to nonylphenol ethoxylates
Normal 0 Through its Design for the Environment (DfE) Alternatives Assessment Plan, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.; www.epa.gov) released a final alternatives assessment report identifying eight safer alternatives to nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), which are widely used in…
UOP opens gas-processing-membrane manufacturing center in Malaysia
UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com), a Honeywell company, has opened a manufacturing and operations center in Penang, Malaysia, that will produce natural gas membrane elements to support the growing natural gas market. UOP’s Separex membrane systems remove impurities from…
JGC: Commercialization of new liquid fuel from low-rank coal
JGC Corp.(Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.co.jp) has completed the construction of a demonstration plant in Indonesia for the production of a liquid-type new fuel called JGC Coal Fuel (JCF). An inauguration ceremony was held, attended by Indonesian and Japanese government officials, as…
Dr. Haldor Topsøe celebrates his 99th birthday
Management and employees are happy to congratulate the founder on this special occasion. Turning 99 is exceptional. Turning 99 with the business understanding and continuous commitment of Haldor Topsøe is unique. Through Dr. Topsøe’s life-long dedication and ambition, he has…
Global CPRI rises in April, as U.S. CPRI slips, ACC says
The Global Chemical Production Regional Index (CPRI) continued to rise in April, according to data from the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) that was reported in the ACC’s latest Weekly Chemistry and Economic Report. The April rise…
‘Drop-in’ biofuels production facility in Louisiana will apply HTW gasification
Sundrop Fuels, Inc. (Longmont, Colo. www.sundropfuels.com) has signed a comprehensive front end engineering and license agreement with Uhde Corp. of America (Pittsburgh, Pa.) for design of what will be one of the first renewable gasoline production facilities in the world.…