Chinese petrochemical company Sinopec has developed a new process to convert crude oil directly into chemicals. The new "Crude Oil to Chemicals" (COTC) process is a major technological breakthrough. China is thus becoming the global technology leader in catalytic cracking of crude oil.

Power generator VPI and Air Products announced the signing of a joint development agreement to drive forward the “Humber Hydrogen Hub” or H3, which seeks to develop a flagship 800 MW low-carbon hydrogen production facility in Immingham, UK.

Can hydrogen play out as chlorine chemistry’s trump card? — Safe, clean, and sustainable — Eurochlor’s position paper on its Mid-Century Strategy for the chlorine industry reads like green buzzword bingo. Yet it’s clear that if the European Union wants to become carbon-neutral by 2050, it will have to take chlorine chemistry into account. It’s just as well that electrolysis provides a sought-after co-product.

With a new MDI technology, Covestro aims to improve efficiency and environmental protection. Everyone is talking about sustainability — including the chemical industry. With the quartet of regenerative energies, alternative raw materials, recycling solutions and CO2-saving technologies, Covestro wants to become a front runner. A completely new MDI technology should also help.

Power-to-X is on everyone’s lips: as energy storage, alternatives to battery-electric mobility or basic raw materials for industrial processes, the conversion of green electricity into material form is a cornerstone of all defossilization strategies. But how realistic is the vision of fuel from the socket? A test plant in Lower Bavaria, Germany, shows that the necessary technologies have long been in the starting blocks.

BASF’s new acetylene plant can produce 90,000 ton of the versatile chemical annually. A byproduct of the process is what is known as acetylene coke. To prevent the coke from clogging the combustion chamber, it is removed by so-called poking robots, specially developed in-house by BASF.

Shell Nederland and Shell Overseas Investments, subsidiaries of Shell, have taken the final investment decision to build Holland Hydrogen I, which will be Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen plant once operational in 2025.

The global chemical process industries are aware of this trend and some of them are already undertaking mega projects to accelerate their energy transition.

Hydrogen technology company H2Site has raised 12.5 million euros in a Series A funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV). The funding is to accelerate the scale up of the company’s integrated membrane reactor and membrane separation technologies.

China wants to accelerate the concentration of its petrochemical industry into five industrial clusters. The ‘big five’ are listed in the People's Republic's just published new five-year plan. The China Market Insider Report presents them in detail.