Nippon Shokubai Co. (Osaka, Japan; www.shokubai.co.jp) held an opening ceremony for various new facilities at its Himeji Plant site, including new production plants for acrylic acid and n-phenylmaleimide (PMI), as well as a new liquid incinerator. The new acrylic acid…
Kemira Oyj (Helsinki, Finland; www.kemira.com) has reached a preliminary agreement to acquire AkzoNobel's global paper chemicals business. The parties will also enter into a distribution agreement for AkzoNobel's colloidal silica business for retention and drainage applications for the paper industry.…
Washington Penn Plastic Co., Inc. (Washington, Pa; www.washingtonpennplastic.com) has concluded an agreement with ExxonMobil Chemical Company (EMC; Houston, Tex.; www.exxonmobilchemical.com) to purchase and license assets of EMC’s North American specialty compounded polypropylene (PP) products business, following EMC’s decision to cease…
GE Power & Water (Schenectady, N.Y.; www.gepower.com) has announced that it has agreed to acquire Monsal (Mansfield, U.K.; www.monsal.com), a private water, waste, advanced anaerobic digestion and integrated biogas-to-energy business.

With Monsal’s advanced anaerobic digestion technology and industry knowledge, GE will…
An affiliate of ExxonMobil (Irving, Tex., www.exxonmobil.com), Esso Belgium, a division of ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical B.V.B.A., announced that it plans to install a new delayed coker unit at its Antwerp refinery to convert heavy, higher sulfur residual oils into…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com), Huntsman Corp., Shanghai Hua Yi (Group) Co., Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical Co. and Sinopec Group Assets Management Corp. held a ceremony today kicking off the construction of a new plant with a production capacity of 240,000…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) is making an investment in the double-digit-million euro range in a new research center at the Rheinfelden, Germany site. Starting at the beginning of 2016, research into silanes will be carried out in modern…
Ineos (www.ineos.com) will acquire BASF SE’s (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) 50% share in Styrolution, a joint venture between the companies. The purchase price to be paid by Ineos amounts to €1.1 billion. A call option in favor of Ineos to buy…
Kuraray Co. (Tokyo, Japan; www.kuraray.co.jp/en) has decided to expand its production facilities in the U.S. at its wholly owned subsidiary MonoSol, LLC, headquartered in Merrillville, Ind. Kuraray will establish a new factory, to be located in Portage, Ind., including new…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) has expanded its polyamide-12 production capacity at the Marl Chemical Site by 5,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr), thereby increasing the supply security of its Vestamid high-performance polymer material. In addition, preparations have begun…