Northern Plains Nitrogen (NPN; Grand Forks, N.D.; www.northernplainsnitrogen.com) leaders announced their plans today to build and operate a $1.5-billion nitrogen-fertilizer production facility near Grand Forks, N.D. The world-scale production facility will include a 2,200-ton/d ammonia plant plus urea and urea-ammonium-nitrate (UAN)…
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Pasadena, Calif.; www.jacobs.com) has received a contract from Minera Chinalco Peru S.A. to perform a feasibility study for the expansion of its Toromocho copper mining facilities in the Morococha District of Peru. Officials did not disclose…
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay) and Ineos AG Rolle, Switzerland; www.ineos.com) have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to combine their European chlorvinyls activities in a proposed 50-50 joint venture (JV). The combination would form a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer…
Foster Wheeler AG (Zug, Switzerland; www.fwc.com) says that a subsidiary of its Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded a contract by OJSC Gazpromneft Moscow Refinery to provide front-end engineering design (FEED) and design documentation in accordance with Russian…
Fluor Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.fluor.com) announced today that it was awarded a contract by The Dow Chemical Company (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) to execute a significant portion of its U.S. Gulf Coast investments. Fluor’s scope includes the engineering, procurement and construction…
Heap-leaching for REs Studies conducted by Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (Sierra Blanca, Tex.; www.trer.com) indicate that heap leaching with 15% (~150 g/L) sulfuric acid has the potential to dissolve minerals containing rare-earth (RE) elements from host rock at…
Plant Watch Neste Jacobs to expand enzyme production plant in Finland April 5, 2013 — Neste Jacobs Oy (Porvoo, Finland; www.nestejacobs.com) has signed a contract to expand an enzyme plant operated by Roal Oy (Rajamäki, Finland; www.roal.fi). Enzymes produced at…
The Circa Group (Melbourne, Australia; www.circagroup.com.au) and the Green Chemistry Center of Excellence at the University of York (U.K.; www.york.ac.uk) have signed an agreement to develop and commercialize a novel “green” solvent called Cyrene. Cyrene is a polar aprotic solvent…
Although several antimicrobial hydrogels have been developed in recent years, they all have one or more drawbacks, such as possible toxicity, insufficient stability and biodegradability, and high costs. These and other drawbacks have been overcome with a synthetic hydrogel being…
The first commercial application of a newly developed process for the treatment of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) waste gas has been established at a milling operation in Los Angeles, Calif. Developed by Pacific Rim Design and Development (PRDD; Reno, Nev.;…