Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany; www.merck.com) announced an investment of €250 million euros in a new facility in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland – the Merck Biotech Development Center – dedicated to biotech development and manufacturing. Driven by the growth of the Healthcare business…
McDermott International, Inc. (Houston; www.mcdermott.com) announced it has been granted approval from Beowulf Energy LLC and Preem AB to commence the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase for its Residue Oil Conversion Complex (ROCC) project. The project will be implemented at…
Saipem S.p.A. (San Donato Milanese, Italy; www.saipem.com) has acquired a proprietary technology for CO2 capture from the Canadian company CO2 Solutions Inc. (CSI). CSI is a leading innovator in the field of enzyme-enabled carbon capture, actively working to develop and…
The preliminary value for the CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI) for November 2019 (the most recent available) decreased from the previous month’s value, the eighth decline in the last ten months. All four major subindices of the overall CEPCI (Equipment,…
Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. (Tokyo; www.shinetsu.co.jp), announced that it has concluded a licensing agreement with Qromis, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) regarding the patented technology Qromis possesses in the field of gallium nitride (GaN) processing, as Shin-Etsu aggressively moves ahead with its…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) announced a single-digit million-euro investment in the capacity expansion of water-based polyurethane dispersions at its Castellbisbal site in Spain. The expansion will allow BASF to increase its production capacity by 30%. “We want to continue…
Linde (Guildford, U.K.; www.linde.com) announced it has started up a new air separation plant to supply nitrogen, high purity oxygen and argon to the 12-in. wafer product line of Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC) in Shanghai. In addition, Linde will…
Sulzer Chemtech (Winterthur, Switzerland; www.sulzer.com) is supplying the first ever industrial scale cMIST system for natural gas dehydration, with start-up scheduled for the second half of 2020. The unit will be installed at an onshore ExxonMobil facility in the U.S.…
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes ended 2019 on a soft note, with a 0.3 percent decline in December following a 0.1 percent gain in November. All changes in the data…
INVISTA’s technology and licensing group, INVISTA Performance Technologies (IPT; www.ipt.invista.com) and Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Co., Ltd have announced the successful start-up of Hengli’s fourth purified terephthalic acid (PTA) line. This plant boasts a capacity of 2.5 million metric tons per…