Jose Carlos Corral Montilla has succeeded Dr. Marko Grozdanovic to become BTC Europe’s new Managing Director and Vice President. The company is BASF’s European sales organisation which focuses on specialty chemicals.

Mitsui Chemicals announced that it has completed the construction of a new plant to produce Lucant, a series of hydrocarbon-based synthetic fluid, at its Ichihara Works in Ichihara, Japan.

Kolon Plastics and BASF signed an agreement to establish a joint venture in Korea to manufacture polyoxymethylene (POM), an engineering plastic used in industrial, transportation, construction and consumer markets.

Cefic’s quarterly report has stated that chemical output in the EU27 dropped by 4.4 % from January to September 2020 compared to the previous year’s level. It also revealed that the global chemical output declined by 1.8 % in the first three quarters of 2020 compared to the same period of 2019.

Sinopec has entered into a strategic cooperation with three leading institutions in order to carry out a joint research on carbon emissions peak and carbon neutral in the energy and chemical industry. The company is also promoting the recovery and utilisation of CO2 from refining and chemical enterprises.

At the end of the year, Charles Butcher will take on the role of Managing Editor at PROCESS Worldwide and LAB Worldwide – the two English trade media of Vogel Communications Group.

The pilot project ‘Chemical recycling of plastics from automobile construction’ is being led by the Thinktank Industrial Resource Strategies at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the car major Audi. The project aims to use waste from engineering plastics and process it into pyrolysis oil in order to create new components.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has stated that its chemical activity barometer rose 0.8 % in November on a three-month moving average basis following a 1.0 % gain in October.

The takeover race continues. With the acquisition of the Swiss company Syngenta, Chemchina wants to grow strongly in the expanding market of agrochemicals and pest management. After first takeover rumors in December, there is now a concrete offer.

The first edition of Chemspec Digital 2020 was held online from November 11 – 12, 2020. The online platform brought together industry players from the global fine as well as speciality chemicals community and showcased various innovative products as well as provided insights into the latest industry trends.