Ethylene from ethane, obtained through steam cracking, is the latest boom sector in China's petrochemical industry. Construction of no less than three new large-scale plants was completed just before the start of the New Year, PROCESS (China) reports. While the vast majority of ethylene in China is still produced in petroleum refineries from naphtha, a number of investors are now turning to cheap ethane, mainly from shale gas deposits in the US.

Repsol has plans to develop the first plant in the Iberian Peninsula which has the capability to produce ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene also known as a super polymer. The new plant is expected to have an annual capacity of 15,000 tons.

Amidst growing demand, Neste has plans to expand its renewable products refinery in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. With this move, the company will expand its overall renewable product capacity by 1.3 million tons annually, thus, leading to the firm’s total renewable product capacity in Rotterdam to 2.7 million tons per annum.

Ineos Oligomers has started up the world’s largest single train Low Viscosity Polyalphaolefin (LV PAO) plant in Texas, USA. With a production capacity of 120,000 tons every year, the new plant is expected to position the firm as the largest merchant supplier of LV PAO across the globe.

PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the ‘Top 10 plant engineering projects of June 2022’ from all over the world. Right from Oman developing its first waste-to-hydrogen facility to Europe starting up an e-cracking furnace experimental unit, find out all the projects making headlines here.

China's energy sector and the country's petrochemical industry are preparing for a future with less fossil fuel. The ‘development of non-fossil energy’ should be a priority from now on, according to a recently published white paper by the Chinese Government, the main points of which PROCESS (China) summarizes in an analysis.

Digital Twin Solutions is Now the New Normal – Covid-19 has transformed industries like never before and the oil and gas sector is no exception to this. The demand for digital twin technologies is at an all-time high amidst the pandemic and major industry players are already making use of this technology for numerous significant projects.

Solvay’s Kalix 10000 series is the latest addition to the firm’s sustainable polymer portfolio. A partially bio-based material produced from renewable feedstock and developed with 100% renewable electricity, the new material offers increased heat resistance, stain resistance, and the lowest moisture absorption which makes them suitable for smart devices.

China has announced massive investments in one of the country's largest petrochemical industry sites. In Zhanjiang, at the southern tip of the People's Republic in Guangdong Province, another 45.2 billion dollars is being pumped into a Verbund site which will focus on petrochemicals and steel production over the next five years. The German chemical giant BASF is right in the middle of all this.

With a mega investment of 7-million-dollars, Borealis has developed a new filtration system with assistance from the Technische Universität Wien and the Graz University of Technology. The system boasts of reducing the loss of plastic pellets into the environment in order to meet the goal of zero pellet loss.