Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. (Luxembourg; www.orioncarbons.com), a supplier of specialty and high-performance carbon black, announced that it will expand production capacity at its facility in Ravenna, Italy, with the construction of a new specialty carbon black line. The line will…
Corpus Christi Polymers LLC (CC Polymers) — a newly formed joint venture between Alpek S.A.B. de C.V. (San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico; www.alpek.com), Indorama Ventures Holdings LP (“Indorama”) a subsidiary of Indorama Ventures Public Ltd. (IVL; Bangkok, Thailand; www.indorama.net) and…
Songwon Industrial Ltd. (Ulsan, South Korea; www.songwon.com) has now begun bulk manufacture of functional monomers at its production site in Ulsan, South Korea. These monomers provide resins and polymers with special functions, one of the most important being improvement of…
The Board of Directors of TPC Group Inc. (Houston; www.tpcgrp.com) has approved a plan to expand the company's Crude C4 processing capacity. There was unanimous support for the company's 2018 capital program as part of the long-range plan to support…
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) announced that its subsidiary in India, Wacker Metroark Chemicals Pvt. Ltd., is expanding its existing silicone production at its Amtala site near Kolkata with a new hydrosilylation plant for manufacturing functional silicone fluids. The…
Lloyd’s Register (London; www.lr.org) has acquired cybersecurity specialist Nettitude. Founded in 2003, Nettitude is an award-winning provider of cybersecurity, compliance, infrastructure and managed security services to organizations worldwide and employs 140 cybersecurity specialists globally. The acquisition strengthens LR’s existing broad…
The preliminary value for the January 2018 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; most recent available) increased compared to the previous month’s value. The Equipment, Buildings, and Engineering & Supervision subindices were all higher for January, pushing the overall monthly CEPCI…
MOL Group (Budapest, Hungary; www.molgroup.info/en/) and JSR Corp. inaugurated a new synthetic rubber plant in Tiszaújváros, Hungary, which will produce 60,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of solution polymerization styrene-butadiene rubber (S-SBR). The most important feedstock of S-SBR is butadiene,…
The Lubrizol Corp. (Wickliffe, Ohio; www.lubrizol.com) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to unveil its new compounding line in Songjiang, China. The new line is part of Lubrizol's strategic global capacity expansion program, supporting the company's Engineered Polymers business and well-known product…
Ube Material Industries, Ltd., a subsidiary of Ube Industries, Ltd. (Ube; Tokyo, Japan; www.ube-ind.co.jp), announced that it will establish a plant for manufacturing MOS-HIGE magnesium oxysulfate whisker materials in Thailand. The new plant will be constructed within the industrial complex…