Business & Economics
A new training center for pump-automation products
KSB AG (Frankenthal, Germany; www.ksb.de) has opened a training center at its Frankenthal location. The newly created rooms offer the perfect setting for operations engineers, consultants, installation contractors and service professionals to become acquainted with the KSB’s automation products. Those…
Strategic collaboration between Genencor and Brain
Genencor (Palo Alto, Calif.; www.genencor.com), a division of Danisco A/S (Copenhagen, Denmark; www.danisco.com) and Brain AG (Zwingenberg, Germany; www.brain-biotech.de), have joined forces in the field of the bio-based fermentative production of industrially relevant biochemicals from renewable raw materials. Genencor will…
Linde/Samsung Engineering to build ethylene plant in India
The technology group The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) and its consortium partner Samsung Engineering Co. (Korea: www.samsungengineering.co.kr) have been awarded the contract to build a turnkey ethylene plant in Dahej, India. The plant has been commissioned by the Indian…
Süd-Chemie acquires Hi-Tech
In the course of the closing end of December 2008, Süd-Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.sud-chemie.com) has acqured the ceramics filter business, which operates under the name of Hi-Tech, of the Cookson Group Plc. (London). Hi-Tec (Alfred Station, N.Y.) develops and…
Axens awarded petrochemical complex in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s JSC Trade House KazMunaiGaz has selected Axens’ (Rueil-Malmaison Cedex – France; www.axens.net) ParamaX Technology Suite for the first major aromatics complex to be located at the Atyrau Refinery in Kazakhstan. The Atyrau refinery processes up to 5.0 million metric…
GEA increases activities in the solar-thermal business
GEA Ibérica, the Spanish subsidiary of the GEA Group AG (Bochum, Germany; www.geagroup.com), has acquired Caldemón Ibérica S.A., a leading manufacturer of shell-and-tube heat exchangers and surface condensers, commonly used in solar thermal power plants. In 2008, the company expects…
Hoerbiger concludes acquisition of Altronic
Hoerbiger Holding AG (Zug, Switzerland; www.hoerbiger.com) has acquired Altronic, Inc. (Girard, Ohio), effective January 1, 2009. Hoerbiger will integrate the company into the Business Division Engine Solutions, and therefore into the Strategic Business Unit Compression Technology. Altronic has locations in…
Active Management of Pipespool Fabricators
In today’s fast track schedules for constructing new capital facilities, the process of designing, delivering and erecting piping often falls in the project’s critical path. This is particularly true for facilities constructed in emerging economies, where the facility generally resides…
Economic Indicators: Business News
Plant Watch Construction of AkzoNobel’s unit for ethylene amines in China progresses December 17, 2008 — AkzoNobel Functional Chemicals (Amersfoort, The Netherlands) is installing production capacity for ethylene amines in Ningbo, China, including ethylene oxide and monoethanolamine (MEA). Startup of…
Bookshelf
Patent Savvy for Managers. By Kirk Teska. Nolo, 950 Parker St., Berkeley, CA 94710-2524. Web: nolo.com. 2007. 278 pages, $29.99 Reviewed by Charles R. Richard, Patent Attorney, Washington, D.C. crobrich@yahoo.com The book I am reviewing here is one in a…