Because of low crude oil prices, times are hard for bio-based chemicals as they can rarely compete with their fossil counterparts pricewise and cannot even play a trump card in the matter of climate change. Nevertheless, industry and academia are developing bio-based processes fervently and with the prerequisite that the products must not be more expensive than conventional ones.

Praxair announced that it has renewed and expanded a long-term contract to supply hydrogen to Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas.

Hydrogen specialist Air Products breaks ground for a world-scale steam methane reformer (SMR) at Covestro’s Baytown facility in Texas. The already sold-out site shall be connected to world’s largest hydrogen plant and pipeline system…

Kuraray, PTT Global Chemical, and Sumitomo, on July 11, 2018, held an opening ceremony for a joint venture company, Kuraray GC Advanced Materials in Thailand.

Germany-based Evonik Industries will build a new production plant for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in Jilin Province in northeastern China. The Group invests more than one hundred million Euro.

Technology company The Linde Group has been awarded a long-term contract to supply Vietnamese steel company POSCO SS-Vina (PSSV) with industrial gases. The deal will see Linde construct the country's largest air separation unit at the Phu My industrial park in Ba Ria (Vung Tau province). The Group will be investing a total of around EUR 40 million in the project.

Bayer MaterialScience has commissioned a new technical center for the development of isocyanate production processes at Chempark Dormagen. The research center was erected in just under a year with an investment of €5 million.