Exxon Mobil announced that operations have commenced at its new 1.5 million ton-per-year ethane cracker at the company’s integrated Baytown chemical and refining complex.

Total has signed an agreement with KKR-Energas to acquire its two gas-fired combined cycle power plants (CCGT) in the North and East of France, which represent an electricity generation capacity of approximately 825 megawatts (MW).

Lyondell Basell announced the cooperation with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Kit) to advance the chemical recycling of plastic materials. The focus of the venture is to develop a new catalyst and process technology to decompose post-consumer plastic waste, such as packaging into monomers for reuse in polymerization processes.

Maire Tecnimont announced that its subsidiary KT — Kinetics Technology has been awarded two EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contracts by Lukoil Nizhegorod Nefteorg Syntez. The contracts are related to five refinery process units as part of the oil residue upgrading project for the Kstovo Refinery, in Central Russia.

Solvay announced the groundbreaking of its manufacturing footprint expansion that increases the resin mixing capacity at its Greenville site to meet the growing needs of commercial and military aerospace composite customers.

March 1, 2016, the day on which a new calendar begins in the radar level measurement for liquids. Place of event: Schiltach in Black Forest/Germany. Persons in action: the level measurement specialists of Vega. Eponymous hero: the Vegapuls 64, the first radar level sensor worldwide working with a frequency of 80 GHz — and thus opening entirely new fields of application. PROCESS was present at the premier.

Dow wants to benefit from the cheap US shale gas and has put a new propane dehydrogenation unit (PDH) into operation in December 2015. Now the facility completed the performance test.

Milling products is one matter. Finely milling products in compliance with Atex to a particle size of 75 µm is another. In order to ensure perfect Atex compliance when finely milling different products, all the conditions have to be in concert.

South America has overcome the crisis quickly. Now especially Brazil, the new Latin American powerhouse, aims for a place among the world's leading economies... More in the second part of our market report series "Chemical Industry of the Americas".

Italvacuum is one of Europe’s best-known manufacturers of vacuum dryers and vacuum pumps for pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, chemicals and cosmetics. This article discusses the company’s Multispray cabinet dryer, the Tumble rotary cylindrical vacuum dryer and the Saurus939 range of vacuum pumps.