UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill; www.uop.com), a Honeywell company, has begun construction in Hawaii of a biofuels demonstration unit that will convert forest residuals, algae and other cellulosic biomass into green transportation fuels. Backed by a $25-million U.S. Dept. of…
Air Liquide (Paris; www.airliquide.com) today announced that its engineering and construction division has signed a contract with the Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group (SNCG; China) to build a 500,000 ton/y methanol-to-propylene (MTP) plant. The new plant will follow the successful…
World production totals for the chemical industry rose in July, with the Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) up 4.4% on the basis of a year-over-year (Y/Y), three-month moving average. However, the production pace has slowed, according the latest…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen; www.evonik.com) is increasing the production capabilities of its methyl methacrylate plants through debottlenecking and plant expansion projects in their existing plants in Europe (Worms and Wesseling in Germany), Asia (Shanghai in China), and the U.S. (Fortier)…
KBR (Houston; www.kbr.com) was awarded a contract by Zeon Chemicals (Zeon; Louisville, Ky.; www.zeonchemicals.com) to provide construction management and construction services for Zeon’s nitrile-rubber plant-expansion project in Pasadena, Texas. KBR will manage the first phase of Zeon’s expansion plan,…
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) is going to test a new on-site, electronic-grade fluorine-gas production unit at its industrial site in Onsan, Korea. After testing, the unit will be installed at a customer site. This production equipment, with a capacity…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will invest in a world-scale production site for acrylic acid, butyl acrylate and superabsorbent polymers (SAP) in Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil. It will be the first acrylic acid and superabsorbents plant in South America. With an…
Industrial production in the U.S. rose by a “surprisingly robust” 0.9% in July, according to data discussed in the most recent Weekly Chemistry and Economic Trends report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com). However, overall production in…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) has begun building a second hexachlorodisilane (HCDS) production facility in Rheinfelden, a city in Germany’s Baden region. Production is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2012. Hexachlorodisilane, a raw material containing silicon,…
Spectris PLC (Egham, U.K.; www.spectris.com) announced this week that it has signed an agreement to acquire Omega Engineering Inc. (Stamford, Conn.; www.omega.com). Omega is a leading supplier of process measurement and control instrumentation across a broad range of categories,…