Business & Economics
ExxonMobil commissions new ULSD units at Baytown and Baton Rouge refineries
ExxonMobil (Fairfax, Va.; www.exxonmobil.com) has completed commissioning of new units to produce ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) at its Baytown, Tex., and Baton Rouge, La. refineries. This will enable ExxonMobil to increase the supply of ULSD by over 3 million gal/d…
BASF: Antioxidants-blending facility in Bahrain
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) plans to build a production facility for customer specific antioxidant blends (CSB) in Bahrain. The new CSB plant will come in addition to the existing tolling agreement for CSB with Astra Polymer in the Kingdom…
Inspiration Ventures and Polymerpark materials establish a JV
Inspirion Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nova Chemicals Inc. (Moon Township, Pa.; www.novachem.com) and PolymerPark materials GmbH (Aachen, Germany; www.polymer-park.com) have formed a joint venture (JV) to bring PolymerPark’s VarioLine technology to North America. VarioLine is a lightweight, foam…
World’s first onsite, large-scale specialty gas plant
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) has signed a contract with Anhui Sanan OptoElectronics Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Sanan OptoElectronics, to build two on-site ammonia plants at Sanan’s new high brightness light emitting diode (LED) manufacturing…
Retail sales, industrial production show gains, ACC report says
A host of largely positive economic reports out during the past week were highlighted by a surprising gain in retail sales, as well as growth in overseas industrial production, the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) says in its…
Exelus receives DOE funds for piloting styrene monomer process
Exelus Inc. (Livingston, N.J.; www.exelusinc.com) received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) to help pilot the company's styrene monomer process. The funds are part of DoE's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) XLerator program, designed…
Air Products creating world’s largest H2-pipeline-supply network
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) plans to construct a new 180-mile long pipeline connecting its existing Louisiana and Texas hydrogen pipeline systems, creating the world’s largest hydrogen plant and pipeline supply network. This integrated pipeline system…
Wacker buys silicone-production plant in South Korea
Wacker Chemicals Korea Inc., a Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) subsidiary, is acquiring the Lucky Silicone brand from Henkel Technologies (Korea) Ltd.. The two companies announced a purchase agreement to this effect today. The transaction still requires antitrust approval.…
Commissioning of a new O2 production unit in Italy
Air Liquide (Paris; www.airliquide.com) announces the commissioning of a new high-pressure and high-purity gaseous oxygen production unit in Italy. It was installed in Castelnuovo del Garda, near Verona, where Air Liquide already operates another air separation unit. With a production…
Construction starts on new He plant in U.S.
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) and Matheson (www.mathesongas.com), a member of the Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. (TNSC) group, today announced that onsite construction has commenced on a new, jointly-owned liquid helium production plant near Big Piney,…