Celanese Corporation (Dallas, Tex.; www.celanese.com) announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Celanese to acquire Omni Plastics and its subsidiaries, including the distributor Resinal de Mexico. Omni Plastics is headquartered and has a compounding facility in Evansville, Indiana, with…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and SINOPEC (Beijing, China; www.sinopecgroup.com) will expand the production capacity of Neopentylglycol (NPG) at the state-of- the-art Verbund site, BASF-YPC Co., Ltd. (www.basf-ypc.com.cn), a 50-50 joint venture in Nanjing, China. The plant was established in…
The Chemical Activity Barometer, a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), expanded 0.6 percent in December on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis and 0.4 percent on an unadjusted basis. The CAB is…
The preliminary value for the October CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; most recent available) increased compared to the previous month’s value for the fifth consecutive month. Increases in October for the Equipment and Buildings subindexes offset small decreases in the…
International automotive manufacturer Groupe PSA has chosen the Dürr Group (Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany; www.durr.com) as a primary supplier in its global network. The core supplier status was announced during a management meeting between the two companies at Dürr’s headquarters in Germany.…
W.R. Grace & Co. (Columbia, Md.; www.grace.com) today signed an agreement to acquire the Polyolefin Catalysts business of Albemarle Corporation (Charlotte, N.C.; www.albemarle.com) for $416 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018, subject to…
Global Bioenergies (Evry, France; www.global-bioenergies.com) announced the start of the scale-up phase of a process converting renewable resources into acetone and isopropanol. The markets for both these 3-carbon compounds are well established and worth billions of dollars. In a further…
Axens (Rueill-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) has completed the expansion of its Calvert City, Kentucky manufacturing plant to produce its industry leading Impulse hydroprocessing catalysts Series in North America. Impulse is a complete range of high performance Hydrotreating catalysts offering flexibility and…
Veolia’s (Paris, France; www.veolia.com) V recycling and waste recovery business in France has been awarded a nine-year contract worth €95 million to improve the Reims energy-recovery plant. Treating the 60,000 metric tons (m.t.) of final waste generated each year by…
Compact Membrane Systems (CMS; Newport, Del.; www.compactmembrane.com) announced a pilot of its new Optiperm olefins-separation technology with DowDuPont. The project will field test Optiperm membranes, with the ultimate goal of testing a demonstration-size unit with membrane area greater than 100…