Exxon Mobil has plans to transform its business structure by combining its chemical and downstream companies and centralizing technology and engineering, and other support services. Under the new streamlined structure, the company will be organized along three business lines – Upstream Company, Product Solutions and Low Carbon Solutions which will help the firm to enhance integration, grow value and reduce costs.

Sumitomo Chemical has decided to build additional production lines for its liquid crystal polymer Sumikasuper at its plant in Ehime, Japan. The liquid crystal polymer will be produced at Sumitomo Chemical’s Ehime plant and at the Harima plant of its subsidiary Taoka Chemical in Japan. This expansion will increase the group’s production capacity by about 30 percent. The new production lines are scheduled for completion in summer 2023.

In a recent report by Vertex Hydrogen, the company has provided the details of developing the low carbon hydrogen production project in the UK. Under the project, natural gas, refinery fuel gas will be converted into low carbon hydrogen and carbon dioxide will be captured and permanently stored under the sea bed.

Versalis has begun the production of bioethanol at its Crescentino plant in Italy. The facility complies with the European legislation for the development of renewable energy RED II and makes use of the Proesa technology to produce sustainable bioethanol.

Mouvex has recently introduced its H-Flo Series and G-Flo Series eccentric disc pumps for the North American market. The pumps can handle highly viscous fluids up to 10,000 cP and soft particles up to 20 mm, it also offers flow rates up to 70 m3/h with a maximum output pressure of 10 bar.

LanzaJet will be developing the world’s first alcohol-to-jet sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production plant in Soperton, Georgia, USA and has recently secured investments from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund. The Freedom Pines Fuels plant is expected to produce 10 million gallons of SAF and renewable diesel annually from sustainable ethanol in 2023.

With the new plant, BASF has replaced its existing production unit at the Ludwigshafen Verbund site in Germany which has been in operation since the past 40 plus years. The new facility has the same production capacity as the previous plant of more than 10,000 metric tons of 2-mercaptoethanol per year.

Lanxess is expanding its production capacity for the active ingredient Preventol CMK (chlorocresol) at the Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany, site by around 50 percent in response to the continuing strong demand for disinfectants and industrial preservation. The specialty chemicals company has invested a single-digit million euro amount for the expansion, which will be completed still in the first quarter of 2022.

Global Bioenergies has come up with a process to convert plant resources into isobutene. The 5-carbon intermediate, prenic acid, which is one of the intermediates in the isobutene synthesis pathway has been developed for the first time from renewable resources.

Under an agreement signed between Wood and Green Lithium, Wood has been made the Owner’s Engineer for delivering UK’s first large-scale commercial lithium refinery. Claimed to be the first of its kind facility in Europe, the plant is expected to meet the growing demand for battery-grade lithium chemicals which is important for the commercial viability of the European battery supply chain, the electric vehicle revolution and its transition to net-zero.