Latest News: Business
Umicore opens emission-control catalyst plant in Poland
Umicore N.V. (Brussels, Belgium; www.umicore.com) officially opened its new production plant for emission control catalysts in Nowa Ruda, Poland (near Wrocław). The facility allows the company to meet the growing demand for automotive catalysts from its customers in Europe, a…
Wacker expands production capacity for silicones in South Korea
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) is expanding its silicone elastomer production capacity in Jincheon, South Korea. The new facilities will include production plants for silicone sealants, specialty silicones and liquid silicone rubber. At the same time, existing production units…
BASF and Aspen Aerogels announce strategic partnership
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and Aspen Aerogels, Inc. (Northborough, Mass.; www.aerogel.com) announced today the expansion of their strategic partnership with the signing of an exclusive supply agreement and a joint development agreement. The agreements are designed to increase market…
Veolia moves North American headquarters to Boston
Veolia (Paris, France; www.veolia.com) announced that it is moving its North American zone headquarters to Boston. With approximately 7,900 North American employees – including 280 in the Boston/Cambridge area and a total of more than 700 in Massachusetts, Veolia…
Hexion announces capacity expansion for resin-coated proppants
The Oilfield Technology Group (OTG) of specialty chemicals company Hexion Inc. (Columbus, Ohio; www.hexion.com/oilfield) announced the expansion of its resin-coated proppant manufacturing facility in Canada to provide a more efficient supply of proppants to fracturing service companies and operators in…
Jacobs wins detailed engineering contract for PVC plant expansion in Egypt
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Pasadena, Calif.; www.jacobs.com) received a contract to provide detailed engineering and procurement assistance services to TCI Sanmar Chemical S.A.E. for its PVC-2 polyvinyl chloride plant expansion project in Port Said, Egypt. When complete, the PVC-2 facility’s…
Chemical Activity Barometer continues solid growth in June, ACC says
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), expanded 0.8 percent in June following a revised 0.9 percent increase in May and 0.7 percent increase in April. All data…
Wison Engineering announces groundbreaking for UAE ethylene project
Wison Engineering Services Co. (Shanghai; www.wison-engineering.com), one of the largest private sector chemical engineering, procurement and construction management (EPC) service providers in China, is pleased to announce that the company has kicked off its first EPC project on site in…
Amec Foster Wheeler wins BP Iraq contract
Amec Foster Wheeler (London, U.K.; www.amecfw.com) announces today the award of a three-year framework agreement by BP Iraq NV (BP) to complete conceptual studies and pre-front end engineering design (FEED) work to support BP plans to sustain and grown production…
U.S. specialty chemicals continue 2nd quarter on soft note, ACC says
The Specialty Chemicals Market Volume Index, a tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) continued the second quarter of 2016 on a soft note, slipping 0.3 percent on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis in May.…