The supervisory board of the specialty chemicals company Altana AG (Wesel, Germany; www.altana.com) has appointed Martin Babilas to become the chief executive officer (CEO). On January 1, 2016, he will succeed Dr. Matthias L. Wolfgruber, who will retire. Martin Babilas…
AkzoNobel Performance Coatings (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) is investing around €3 million ($3.4 million) to expand its research and development (R&D) facilities in Houston, Texas. The upgraded facility will support the company’s Protective Coatings, Marine Coatings and Specialty Coatings businesses. Completion is due in early 2016. “The expanded facility will provide a central, state-of-the-art technical resource for our…
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (Waltham, Mass.; www.thermofisher.com) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alfa Aesar, a leading global manufacturer of research chemicals and part of Johnson Matthey Plc (London; www.matthey.com), for £256 million (or approximately $405 million) in cash.…
Novasep (Pompey, France; www.novaseo.com) says it will build a fully integrated Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) facility at its Le Mans site in France. The new facility will enable Novasep to complement its current ADC offering with full bio-conjugation services…
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), increased by 0.7 percent in June, followed by a similar gain in May, and an upwardly revised 0.5 percent gain in…
Huntsman Corporation (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.huntsman.com) announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Tecnoelastomeri, a manufacturer and marketer of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) based hot-cast elastomer systems and processing machines, based in Modena, Italy. 2014 sales revenue for…
Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; www.petronas.com), Malaysia’s national oil-and-gas company, has selected Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) as a technology provider for Petronas’ Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (RAPID) project located in Pengerang, Johor, Malaysia. RAPID is part…
Specialty chemical market volumes in the U.S. fell by 0.8% in May, continuing a series of declines since December of last year, according to the latest Weekly Chemistry and Economic Report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com).…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has inaugurated its world-scale production complex for acrylic acid, butyl acrylate and superabsorbent polymers in Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil. These are the first plants for acrylic acid and superabsorbent polymers in South America. The complex…
Assiut Oil Refining Co. (ASORC) of Egypt has selected Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France www.axens.net) to supply technologies for its refinery-upgrade project, which consist of a new complex for the production of high-octane gasoline. This project aims to satisfying domestic market needs…