A new ethylene complex from Lyondell Basell and its Chinese joint venture partner has officially been put into operation. The petrochemical complex has started manufacturing the first end products with an annual capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of ethylene at the Panjin site in the northern Chinese province of Liaoning.

Ebro Armaturen has introduced a butterfly valve that can be used in plastic pipes. Easy to remove, the valve can also be recycled as a single material and ensures easy, error-free assembly, maximum flow as well as optimal hygiene.

Fluid Components International’s ST80 series thermal mass flow meter assisted a global chemical company to attain the ISO 50001 energy management system certification while lowering its energy costs.

Under the terms of the shareholders agreement, Reliance will join hands with Adnoc and ADQ in the Ta’ziz industrial chemical zone in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi for the development of a mega chemical project – Ta’ziz EDC & PVC. For this, the joint venture has plans to invest over 2 billion dollars for building a chlor-alkali, ethylene dichloride and polyvinyl chloride production facility.

Under the terms of the agreement, Lummus and Braskem will focus on global licensing of commercial green ethylene technology in order to accelerate the use of bioethanol for developing chemicals and plastics. The initiative supports the carbon neutral circular economy.

An article in the Science magazine describes a new and compact approach to producing syngas. The technology from Haldor Topsoe is based on steam methane reforming and could have a significant positive effect on CO2 emissions globally.

The Chinese robot company Chongqing Sevnce Technology exhibited an intelligent explosion-proof inspection robot at a recently held trade show in Iran. With an Ex d IIB T4 Gb China explosion-proof certification along with an IP65 waterproof and dustproof certification, the robot paves the way for digitization, intelligent, and safe industrial development in the oil & gas industry.

China is catching up in the fine chemcials sector. The communist state and party leadership in Beijing intends to use a series of targeted support measures to accelerate the development of the industry in order to become more self-sufficient towards foreign countries.

Nova Chemicals and Enerkem have plans to advance the commercialization of its chemical recycling technology by developing a pilot-scale reactor system that converts syngas produced from used, non-recyclable plastics to feedstocks for virgin-grade plastics.

Hengli Petrochemical started up the world's largest stand-alone pure terephthalic acid (PTA) production plant at the end of June. According to PROCESS China, the new PTA-5 plant has an annual capacity of 2.5 million tons and is ready to be the third new plant to be started up in China this year.