According to a report by the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index edged higher by 0.1 per cent at the beginning of the year. On a 3MMA basis, manufacturing activity rose by 0.3 per cent in January, added the report.

Claimed to be Europe’s No 1 trade fair for the fine and speciality chemicals industry, Chemspec Europe trade fair is all set to be held from May 27 – 28, 2020 in Cologne, Germany.

The specialty chemicals group Altana announced the grand opening of its BYK USA expanded facility in Wallingford, Connecticut. With this state of the art plant, BYK more than doubles production capacity in the U.S. and increases worldwide supply chain security for its additives, the company said.

Two workers died after suffering burns during a fire at Chelanese’s plant on Jurong Island on February 7. Singapore’s authorities and the chemical company are now investigating the cause of the incident.

The key outcome of Cefic’s data analysis has revealed that there is a need to better execute the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals for imported goods. Children’s toys are considered to be the most recurrent case of non-compliance.

At Achema, GEA hosted a joint press conference with key suppliers to the pharmaceutical industries to highlight collaborative efforts aimed at promoting the advancement of continuous manufacturing technologies.

The renewable polypropylene will be produced at Borealis’ production facilities in Kallo and Beringen, Belgium. The move supports the company’s Ever Minds venture which aims to boost the circular economy concept.

BASF has broken ground on the second phase of its Innovation Campus Asia Pacific at its Pudong site in Shanghai, China. The €90 million expansion consists of an additional regional research and development (R&D) building and auxiliary facilities and it will be completed by the end of 2015.

Sunfire’s high-temperature electrolysis technology enables the production of renewable hydrogen and direct conversion of water as well as CO2 into raw material for petrochemical products. Neste intends to use this technology for its new business platform – Power-to-X.

With the intention of accelerating Mitsubishi Chemical’s efforts towards the establishment of a circular economy, the new department will be developed from April 1, 2020 which will suggest sustainable solutions across all its business platforms.