Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) show that global chemicals production rose 0.1 percent in January. This follows a 0.3 percent gain in December, stable activity in November and a 0.1 percent gain…
Nokia (Espoo, Finland; www.nokia.com) announced that it will partner with Pöyry PLC (Helsinki, Finland; www.poyry.com), an international consulting and engineering company, and Infosys (Bengaluru, India; www.infosys.com), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, to further enhance and accelerate…
McDermott International, Inc. (Houston; www.mcdermott.com) announced the successful commercialization and startup of its single largest CDAlky reactor to date at PetroChina's refinery in Jilin, China. The 350,000-metric-tons-per-year (m.t./yr; 9,000 barrels per day) plant is one of four CDAlky projects awarded…
WorleyParsons Ltd. (North Sydney, Australia; www.worleyparsons.com) and WatershipBlue (Pawleys Island, South Carolina; www.watershipblue.com) have entered into a Master Services Agreement (MSA) supporting the advisory, consulting, design, construction and operation of waterships worldwide. Waterships are large-scale, floating seawater desalination plants based…
Honeywell (Charlotte, N.C.; www.honeywell.com) announced that Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical Co., Ltd. will use Honeywell UOP’s C3 Oleflex technology to produce 700,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of polymer-grade propylene at its facility in Lianyungang City in China’s Jiangsu Province. Jiangsu…
Caprolactam production requires tight oxygen control to prevent explosive conditions developing in reactor vessels. For a Chinese manufacturer, the slow response and high maintenance of their O2 analyzers was unacceptable. Changing to GPro® 500 in situ TDL sensors has reduced…
Sibur (Moscow; www.sibur.com) announced that the polypropylene unit at ZapSibNeftekhim, a deep hydrocarbon conversion plant under construction, is 99.8% complete. Construction and installation work on the process unit are over, and commissioning is underway. In particular, systems are undergoing functional testing…
Royal Dutch Shell plc (The Hague, the Netherlands; www.shell.com) officially opened its solar park at the Shell Moerdijk Chemical Plant. With 76,000 panels, the solar park has a peak capacity of 27 megawatts, equivalent to the energy consumption of 9,000…
The Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC; Riyadh; www.sabic.com) and hte GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany; www.hte-company.com) have extended plans for collaboration for five more years to increase efficiency through digitalization and high throughput technologies in catalysis research and development (R&D) in petrochemicals.Dr.…
Asahi Kasei Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp) will enhance its manufacturing infrastructure for Lithium-ion battery (LIB) separator products — including the Hipore LIB separator (wet process) and Celgard LIB separator (dry process) product lines — with completion scheduled for the first…