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…
Dow Industrial Solutions, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com), announced plans to expand its propionic acid facility in Texas City, Texas to meet rising global demand.The propionic acid market continues to grow as a result…
Covestro AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.covestro.com) announced that it will continue production in Tarragona (Spain) beyond 2020. The company will invest around EUR 200 million to increase the cost competitiveness at the site by implementing various measures. As a first step,…
Hanwha Total Petrochemical (Seoul, South Korea), a 50/50 joint venture between Hanwha Corp. (Seoul; www.hanwha.com) and Total S.A. (Paris, France; www.total.com), will invest more than $300 million to expand its integrated petroleum-refining and petrochemicals platform located in Daesan, South Korea…
NOVA Chemicals Corp. (Calgary, Canada; www.novachem.com) announced two significant growth projects for its Ontario operations involving a capital investment expected to exceed Cdn $2 billion. This brings industry-leading manufacturing technology to Ontario, with improved product performance and increased energy efficiency.…
Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. (Luxembourg; www.orioncarbons.com) announced that it has completed construction of a new Carbon Black production line at its plant in Yeosu, South Korea, to produce specialty products. The line started production on November 23rd and has begun…