A new report titled ‘Bio-based Building Blocks and Polymers – Global Capacities, Production and Trends 2025–2030’ has been compiled by nova-Institute. The report forecasts that the expansion of the global bio-based polymer market will be led by Europe and North America while Asia remains a major growth region.

Europe’s chemical industry is sliding into crisis as rising energy costs, weak demand, and dwindling investments force widespread plant shutdowns. Without swift policy intervention, the region risks losing its industrial backbone to competitors in lower cost, faster growing markets.

Air Products and Yara are in advanced talks to collaborate on low-emission ammonia projects in the U.S.A and Saudi Arabia with Yara’s world-scale ammonia network.

In a joint position paper, Europe’s energy intensive industries raise concerns that persistently high electricity prices could undermine industrial competitiveness and decarbonization efforts. One of their key demands is a competitive benchmark of 50 euros per MWh.

BP’s new facility is expected to generate up to 11,000 tons of green hydrogen annually. Bilfinger has been selected to deliver the prefabrication, assembly and installation of plant components for BP’s new green hydrogen electrolyzer.

Henkel has joined hands with Sekab to speed up the transition from fossil-based to bio-based raw materials in adhesive production. The partnership intends to replace conventional ethyl acetate with a sustainable, bio-based alternative.

PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the ‘Top 10 plant engineering projects of March 2025’ from all over the world. Right from ABB and Charbone Hydrogen collaborating for green hydrogen production units to Aramco launching Saudi’s first CO2 direct air capture test unit, find out all the projects making headlines here.

The Leuna biorefinery, claimed to be the largest industrial-scale investment in biochemicals in Europe, has started the production and commercialization of industrial sugars. The biorefinery has now reached stable operation in separating lignin and sugars.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has announced that it has achieved the target performance of over 99.5 vol % ethanol purity, which meets domestic fuel standards, at a pilot plant for membrane dehydration systems installed at MHI's Nagasaki Carbon Neutral Park within the Nagasaki District Research & Innovation Center in Japan.

Long Son Petrochemicals have awarded a contract to Technip Energies for its Long Son Petrochemical Enhancemeant Project located in Lon Son Island, Vietnam. The project is among the first worldwide in recent years to convert a naphtha-based steam cracker to ethane.