Air Products signed of a long-term agreement with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) to build, own and operate a new syngas production facility at the BPCL Kochi Refinery in Kochi, India.

Yara and BASF broke ground on a world scale ammonia plant at the BASF U.S.-site in Freeport, Texas. Total capital investment for the plant – which is expected to come online in 2017 – is estimated at $600 million.

Linde will build and operate a state–of–the–art hydrogen plant at Jilin, China. There, companies like Evonik and Huntsman are currently planning a new chemical hub for the production of polymer feedstock.

Researchers at Osaka University have developed a new catalytic system for efficiently splitting water and making hydrogen with energy from normal sunlight. Their study was recently reported in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Praxair announced that it has expanded its long-term hydrogen supply agreement with Motiva Enterprises LLC. Under this new agreement, the company will increase the amount of hydrogen it supplies to Motiva’s approximately 600,000 barrel per day refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.

The Linde Group and the specialty chemicals company Evonik Industries have concluded an exclusive cooperation agreement on the use of membranes for natural gas processing.

Methionine is used as an essential amino acid, particularly in animal feed, that is currently based on petrochemical production. A newly developed enzymatic process has succeeded for the first time in using gaseous CO2 as a basic material for the production of a chemical mass product in a biotechnical reaction.

Maire Tecnimont announced that its subsidiary KT — Kinetics Technology has been awarded two EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contracts by Lukoil Nizhegorod Nefteorg Syntez. The contracts are related to five refinery process units as part of the oil residue upgrading project for the Kstovo Refinery, in Central Russia.

Technip FMC has been awarded a contract by the state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) for a grassroot Hydrogen Generation Unit (HGU). The undisclosed value of the contract ranges between $ 250 and 500 million.

My, how you've grown! Micro- and millireactors bring process intensification in specialty chemistry and pharmacy — One of the current challenges facing the process industry is a change in product portfolio away from commodities to customer-specific specialties. The paradigm shift in process technology production from the batch principle to the continuous flow process based on micro- and millireactors offers great advantages in many cases and is now showing initial success on an industrial scale.