With an aim to meet the growing demand of sustainable coating solutions for the automotive, commercial vehicle and industrial markets in China as well as the Asia Pacific region, Axalta Coating Systems has expanded its waterborne coatings plant in Jiading, Shanghai, China.

South Refineries Company’s Basrah refinery upgrading project in Iraq will make use of various technologies from Axens in order to increase its gasoline and diesel production. The move is expected to reduce imports of petroleum products in the country.

Chevron Phillips Chemical announced plans to expand its alpha olefins business with a second world-scale unit to produce on-purpose 1-hexene. Expected capacity for the new unit is 266 KTA with targeted startup in 2023 and its location will be Old Ocean, Texas, near the company’s Sweeny facility. At its peak, the project anticipates supporting more than 600 construction jobs and 50-plus full-time positions.

The Sesotec metal separator Rapid Pro-Sense with the control unit Genius+ offers extremely high sensitivity due to its innovative HRF (High Resolution Frequency) technology. The detection signal is sent and evaluated at a special frequency.

Under a MOU signed between Yara International and Jera, both the companies will work together for production, delivery and supply chain development of blue and green ammonia which aims at decarbonizing power production in Japan.

Metering and process diaphragm pumps manufacturer Lewa has signed a purchase contract with Seko Middle East FZE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seko S.p.A., to take effect on December 1, 2016. The object of the agreement was the takeover of the entire plant, including all assets and the chemical injection package (CIP) business for the oil and gas sector, the (petro-)chemical industry and the power plant sector. The acquisition is part of the Lewa Group’s strategy of specializing in pumps and integrated systems solutions.

Trinseo has partnered with ETB for the development of purified bio-based 1,3-butadiene. Both the companies also plan to conduct a feasibility study for the construction of a dedicated bio-based 1,3-butadiene pilot plant in Europe which will aim to achieve a purity target of 99.7 %.

Elkem has established a new firm called Vianode to develop sustainable and high-quality active anode materials for the growing electric vehicle industry. Under the freshly created company, a new pilot plant for advanced battery materials will be built in Kristiansand, Norway.

Under an agreement signed between Origin Materials and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, Origin Materials will sell Mitsubishi Gas Chemical’s carbon-negative materials. Together both the companies will also aim to develop and industrialize new as well as advanced carbon-negative chemicals based on Origin Materials’ technology platform.

Lyondell Basell’s Lupotech T high-pressure polyethylene technology will be used in two separate production lines at Shandong Yulong Petrochemical Co.’s new facility in China. The production lines include a 200 KTA low density polyethylene line as well as a 300 KTA LDPE and ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer line which will be used to produce LDPE with vinyl acetate comonomer.