Zhejiang Petrochemical (ZPC) will use a range of process technology from Honeywell UOP for the second phase of an integrated refining and petrochemical complex in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province. The complex is one of several new large industrial sites that are part of China’s current national economic development plan.

The chemical plants aim at establishing a high-performance synthetic resin manufacturing and sales business for Kuraray, PTTGC and Sumitomo Corporation. With the rise in global demand for chemical products, Japanese chemical manufacuturers are expanding their production capacity in locations where petroleum and chemical products are price competitive.

Celanese‘s recent takeover of one of India’s largest engineering thermoplastics compounders has enabled the firm to possess a 20 kilo tonnes per annum domestic compounding production facility in the country along with quality production lines to support local customers.

Under the contract, both the firms will evaluate the feasibility of jointly funding, designing, building and operating an integrated acetic anhydride and Tricoya wood elements production plant in Malaysia.

The petrochemical industry is booming in North America, and Bilfinger North America wants its share of the growth. The service provider is currently doing good business with three large projects, and the orders already received for 2019 are promising another good year. The PROCESS editorial team was able to get a picture of these projects during a press trip.

No more ‘business as usual’: The CEO of one of the world’s leading oil companies says the upstream sector needs to transform itself to stay on top of the global energy industry. And the biggest challenge might be yet to come…

Oxea is studying the feasibility of a new world-scale production plant for the manufacturing of carboxylic acids. At the same time, the company announed measures to further improve and debottleneck its manufacturing processes at its existing carboxylic acid production units.

The dream of plastic from waste gas continues: The pan-European research project Carbon4PUR takes the next step in investigating how waste gas from the steel industry can be turned into chemicals for valuable plastics. Now, the consortium starts evaluation of the ideal conditions for industrial-scale testing in southern France where a steel mill of Arcelor Mittal and a chemical plant of material producer Covestro are close neighbours.

A union of giants: Chemical heavyweight BASF and Chinese petrochemical giant Sinopec plan a further cooperation for a new world-scale isononanol (INA) plant in Maoming, China. With this investment in plasticizers, the two partners could significantly increase their footprint in China's rubber and polymers business, industry experts believe.

Emerson has agreed to acquire UK-based Permasense, a provider of non-intrusive corrosion monitoring technologies for the offshore and onshore oil production, refining, chemical, power, pipelines, metals and mining and other industries.