On September 30, 2020, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) closed the divestiture of its Construction Chemicals business to an affiliate of Lone Star, a global private equity firm. The purchase price on a cash and debt-free basis is €3.17 billion. The…
The Gazpromneft Omsk Oil Refinery (Omsk) in Siberia, Russia has significantly lowered its air emissions using wet-scrubbing technology licensed by DuPont Clean Technologies (DuPont). With an installed capacity of 22.23 million tons of oil per year, the Omsk Oil Refinery…
PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Tbk (Jakarta, Indonesia) is starting up a new Enclosed Ground Flare (EGF), a smokeless flare technology, at its petrochemical complex in Cilegon, Banten, Indonesia. The total investment for the EGF was around $14 million. In construction…
Metsä Fibre Oy, part of the Metsä Group, and AFRY AB (Stockholm, Sweden) have entered into a preliminary agreement for the engineering, project management and site services for the implementation of a new chlorine dioxide plant at the Kemi bioproduct…
Nippon Shokubai Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) has begun the facility design for an enhanced production plant for the electrolyte lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl) imide (LiFSI; marketed under the name Ionel) for lithium-ion batteries. The company has assembled the Ionel Construction Team in order…
MetalSCAN 4110 (photo) is a condition-monitoring technology designed to detect and monitor the progression of component damage, including severity and remaining life indication, for bearings and gears in high-temperature, severe industrial and hazardous environments. The rugged MetalSCAN 4110 effectively detects…
This column is based on “Sodium Chlorate Production – Cost Analysis,” a report published by Intratec. It can be found at: www.intratec.us/analysis/sodium-chlorate-production-cost. Sodium chlorate (NaClO3; also known as chlorate of soda) is an odorless inorganic salt with colorless crystals and…
Pipe supports in industrial process plants are often more complicated than commonly thought. Presented here are some of the challenges that can arise and how to address them On one level, the topic of pipe supports seems like it should…
Even with advanced predictive technologies, unplanned equipment failures can still occur. In these instances, as shown in this boiler example, rapid maintenance action is crucial to minimize downtime Maintenance activities generally fall into two categories — reactive and preventative. The…
Improved understanding of the causes of piping leaks can reduce the frequency of leaks and lead to significantly better performance over time Leakage in pipes is an ongoing problem in research and development facilities across many sectors of the chemical…