Business & Economics
Chester Mroz to lead Yokogawa Corp. of America….
Mroz Aydin Dumba Simm Sipla Chester Mroz becomes president and CEO of Yokogawa Corp. of America (Houston), the North American division of Yokogawa Electric Corp. Alaaddin Aydin becomes sales director for Germany for Maag Group (Grossostheim, Germany), a maker of…
Wacker expands its polysilicon production in Germany, and other business news
Evonik builds surfactants plant in China March 30, 2011 — Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) is building an integrated production plant for organic specialty surfactants at its site in Shanghai, China. With an investment in the upper double-digit million…
Srategic partnership forms for acrylonitrile and sodium cyanide in the Middle East
Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com), Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp. (Tokyo; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp) and Mitsubishi Corp. (Tokyo; www.mitsubishicorp.com) have signed a strategic joint venture (JV) agreement to form a limited liability company, Saudi Japanese Acrylonitrile Company (SHROUQ), which…
Global chemical production slips slightly in March, ACC says
The aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan caused the overall Global Chemical Production Regional Index (global CPRI) to slip by 0.1% in March, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com). According to data…
MHI: Producing biofuel locally at low cost
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo, Japan; www.mhi.co.jp) has successfully established technology to produce ethanol for automobile fuel, satisfying the standards of the Japanese Automotive Standards Organization (JASO), from lignocellulose (soft cellulose) such as rice straw and barley straw. Verification…
KBR: EPC contract for biomass-to-crude project
KBR, Inc. (Houston; www.kbr.com) has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by KiOR, Inc. (Pasadena, Tex.; www.kior.com) to build a first-of-its-kind biomass-to-renewable crude facility to be located in Columbus, Miss. The facility is designed to process approximately…
A new MTR plant for Koksan in Turkey
Koksan PET Packaging Industry Co., a leading producer of PET preforms has signed a contract with Uhde Inventa-Fischer GmbH (Berlin, Germany and Domat/Ems, Switzerland; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) to build a new plant for the production of high-quality polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in Gaziantep,…
Technip awarded refining contract in Brazil
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com), in consortium with Tomé Engenharia, was awarded by Petrobras a lump sum turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, for five new units at the Presidente Bernardes Refinery in Cubatão, state of São Paulo, Brazil. This…
Cobalt Technologies and American Process to build world’s first cellulosic biobutanol refinery
Cobalt Technologies (Mountain View, Calif; www.cobalttech.com) and American Process Inc. (API; Atlanta, Ga.; www.americanprocess.com) today announced an agreement to build the world’s first industrial-scale cellulosic biorefinery to produce biobutanol. Additionally, the companies agreed to jointly market a GreenPower+ Biobutanol solution to…
Crystallics: A ‘new’ company in pharma development
Avantium Pharma BV (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.avantium.com), a leader in solid-state research and pre-formulation for the pharmaceutical industry over the last 11 years, has been spun out from Avantium Holding BV in a management buy-out to create Crystallics (www.crystallics.com). The…