Anup Kothari has been selected to spearhead Division Nutrition & Health, Lampertheim at BASF from February 1, 2021 while Thomas Kloster will take charge of the firm’s Performance Chemicals business.

Ineos Styrolution has entered into a joint development agreement with Polystyvert to convert post-consumer polystyrene plastic into a new, high quality, polystyrene raw material resin. Polystyvert will make use of its patented advanced recycling technology for this purpose.

Under the terms of the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate numerous onsite gas production facilities including an air separation unit in China in order to meet Binhua’s oxygen and nitrogen demand. With this, Air Products will support Binhua’s flagship chemical project situated in Shandong Province, China.

Global petroleum additive specialist Afton Chemical has opened its new production plant in Jurong Island, Singapore. The facility will now commence production of key components that are used in Afton Chemical’s engine oil additives to meet rising regional and global demand.

With the mega investment, Shintech will increase its production capacity by 580,000 tons of VCM per year, 380,000 tons of PVC and 390,000 tons of caustic soda per year at its manufacturing facility in Plaquemine, Louisiana, USA.

Kemira has successfully completed the first phase of a two-stage capacity expansion of its water treatment chemicals production in the UK. With this, the company expects the output of the product line in Ellesmere Port to increase by more than 30.000 tonnes annually.

Austria's OMV is expanding and modernizing the cracker facilities and petrochemical cold section at the Burghausen refinery. The aim of the measures is to increase ethylene and propylene production capacity at the site.

The year 2020 was a promising year for bio-based polymers: Sold out PLA in 2019 has led to the installation of increased capacities, PE and PP made from bio-based naphtha are breaking ground and future expansion for bio-based polyamides as well as for PBAT, PHAs and casein polymers is on the horizon. A lower production is only observed for bio-based PET.

With Dinnissen's multisize sample carousel, producers can now take samples of different sizes in an automated sampling process.

A fire and an explosion took place in the incinerator of the ESBR rubber production installation at Synthos’ production site in Oswiecim, Poland. No injuries were reported in the accident.