Latest News: Business
ABB opens analyzer-system construction facility in Houston
ABB (Zurich, Switzerland; www.abb.com) has opened a new facility in Houston that will build fully integrated analyzer shelters for the downstream oil-and-gas industry. The new 40,000-ft2 Analytical Systems Integration Facility will manufacture integrated shelters containing analyzer systems that are designed…
Messer commissions production facility for krypton and Xenon in China
Messer Group GmbH (Bad Soden, Germany; www.messergroup.com) has announced the successful commissioning of a new production facility, where the company has been producing the noble gases krypton and xenon, located in the central Chinese city of Panzhihua, Sichuan province. In…
Wacker starts up new production plant for specialty monomers at Burghausen
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) has officially started up a new specialty-monomer plant with an annual capacity of 3,800 metric tons (m.t.) at its Burghausen site in Germany. The specialty monomers vinyl neodecanoate and vinyl laurate are key…
BASF to sell its global paper hydrous kaolin business to Imerys
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has signed a contract to sell its global paper hydrous kaolin (PHK) business to Imerys, a leader in mineral-based specialty solutions for industry, based in Paris, France. In September 2014, BASF announced its plan…
Innospec to divest aroma chemicals business
Innospec Inc. (Littleton, Colo.; www.innospecinc.com) announced that it has reached an agreement to divest its Aroma Chemicals business unit (Innospec Widnes Limited) to Emerald Kalama Chemical, a business group of Emerald Performance Materials LLC. Terms of the transaction were not…
Kemira opens water-treatment chemicals plant in Spain
Kemira Oyj (Helsinki; www.kemira.com) has announced opening of what is said to be one of Europe's largest production plants for the manufacture of water-treatment chemicals. The Tarragona plant located in La Canonja, Catalonia, Spain, also has a unit for the…
Lubrizol increases acrylic emulsion capacity in Belgium
The Lubrizol Corp.’s (Wickliffe, Ohio; www.lubrizol.com) Performance Coatings business announces the addition of new acrylic emulsion capacity at its manufacturing facility in Antwerp, Belgium. The facility manufactures resin technologies for the paint and coatings, graphic arts, engineered paper, textile and…
Sasol commissions first phase of wax expansion project
Sasol Ltd. (Johannesburg, South Africa; www.sasol.co.za) has announced that Phase I of its Fischer-Tropsch Wax Expansion Project (FTWEP) has been successfully commissioned at its Sasolburg Operations in South Africa. “This is a significant milestone and we are very pleased with…
Jacobs awarded EPCM contract for Celanese VAE emulsions plant
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Pasadena, Calif.; www.jacobs.com) announced that it was awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract from Celanese Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.celanese.com) for the construction of a vinyl acetate ethylene (VAE) emulsions production plant at Jurong…
Westlake acquires Ineos stake in China-based PVC resin JV
Westlake Chemical Corp. (Houston; www.westlake.com) announced that it has acquired Ineos ChlorVinyls Holdings B.V.'s 35.7% interest in Suzhou Huasu Plastics Co., Ltd. (SHPC), a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin and downstream fabrication joint venture (JV) based near Shanghai, China. Westlake now…