Total Corbion PLA, a 50/50 joint venture between Total S.A. (Paris, France; www.total.com) and Corbion (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.corbion.com), announced the startup of its 75,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) PLA (Poly-Lactic Acid) bioplastics plant in Rayong, Thailand. The plant…
Hexcel Corp. (Stamford, Conn.; www.hexcel.com) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ARC Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of custom RF / EMI and microwave-absorbing composite materials for military, aerospace and industrial applications. The acquisition strengthens Hexcel’s existing advanced…
Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) announced that it will relocate its global corporate headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina, a city close to several of Honeywell's businesses in the Southeast United States. Honeywell also announced it will relocate the headquarters of its Safety and…
Kemira Oyj (Helsinki, Finland; www.kemira.com) has formed a joint venture with a producer of alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) wax in China. With this agreement, Kemira forms a joint venture – Kemira TC Wanfeng Chemicals Yanzhou (NewCo) – with Shandong Tiancheng…
DuPont Water Solutions (www.dupont.com/water), a part of the DuPont Safety & Construction business, opened its new reverse osmosis (RO) production line in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Located in Jubail Industrial City II, the facility will manufacture membrane technology and…
Aker Solutions (Fornebu, Norway; www.akersolutions.com) and Siemens AG (Munich and Berlin, Germany; www.siemens.com) have signed a strategic collaboration agreement to further develop digital offerings in engineering, operations and services. The collaboration focuses on the creation of software applications and joint…
Hanwha Total Petrochemical (www.hanwha-total.com), a 50/50 joint venture between Total S.A. (Paris, France; www.total.com) and Hanwha Group (Seoul, South Korea; www.hanwha.com), will invest nearly $500 million to further expand its Daesan integrated refining and petrochemical complex in South Korea. The…
Users of compressed air can take advantage of heat recovery to enhance their sustainability, improve energy efficiency and reduce system lifecycle costs Air compressors account for a considerable portion of industrial energy consumption, and facilities that employ large-scale air compression…
The pitfalls in cost estimating that cause project overruns have been well known for decades, yet they continue to plague the CPI When I first started writing this article, I set out to summarize the mechanics of project cost estimation.…
The recommended velocities for fluids’ transportation must be updated periodically to obtain the optimum value of the pipe diameter in the current economic conditions To arrive at the optimum diameters for pipes, the heuristic criteria of recommended velocity has been…