Plant Expansions

Nu-Vu Conair, a manufacturer of plastic auxiliary equipment in India, recently inaugurated its new fabrication facility in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. This facility houses ultra‐modern fabrication machinery such as laser cutting machine, CNC press brake, CNC rolling machine and automatic welding machine. This new initiative is a part of the company’s ‘Continuous…

Swiss Bühler Group and Premier Tech from Canada have formed a strategic cooperation for industrial flexible packaging solutions, which includes building a design and manufacturing centre in China. In grain processing, packaging is the last step before transporting flour to bakeries and other food processors, rice to distributors or pellets to farms. In many…

Saudi Aramco’s US refining arm, Motiva Enterprises, has signed an agreement to acquire a 100% ownership interest in Flint Hills Resources chemical plant that is adjacent to its Port Arthur, Texas, oil refinery. The potential acquisition is targeted to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to satisfaction of…

Italian auxiliary equipment firm Piovan Group has finalised the acquisition of ToBaPNC, a South Korean company involved in the automation of industrial processes for plastics and in particular in those for the transport of plastic powders. Filippo Zuppichin, CEO of Piovan Group said, “This is an operation that allows us…

LiqTech International, a US-listed company, headquartered in Denmark, is to acquire BS Plastic A/S, a specialised plastics manufacturer based in Denmark. The acquisition allows LiqTech, a clean technology company that manufactures specialised filtration technologies, to source certain components of its proprietary ceramic silicon carbide water filtration systems for closed loop…

South Korea’s Hyosung is to invest US$829 million by 2028 to expand its carbon fibre production capacity. It plans to start ten production lines for carbon fibre manufacturing at its plant in Jeonju City, capable of producing 24,000 tonnes of the material a year, said to be the largest in…

SK Capital, a private investment firm focused on the specialty materials, chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors, has acquired the Performance Products & Solutions business (PP&S) from US compounder PolyOne Corporation in a transaction valued at approximately US$775 million. PP&S is a plastic compounded solutions provider that makes formulated polyvinyl chloride (PVC)…

We could soon be whizzing across countries on planes powered by jet fuel made from household waste. A partnership between Dutch oil company Shell, British Airways and UK renewable fuel company Velocys intends to build Europe’s first large-scale plant to produce jet fuel from domestic and commercial waste by 2024.…

Russia’s oil/gas company Sibur’s Blagoveshchensk site, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, near the Kazak border, recently held a ceremony to celebrate the US$90 million reconstruction of its terephthalic acid (TPA) production facility, the only one currently in Russia. Currently, consumption of TPA in Russia amounts to around 500 kilotonnes/year and…

Chinese chemicals maker Hengli Group has started up what is said to be the world’s largest on-purpose olefin production plant with a capacity of 1 million tonnes/year. The mixed-feed dehydrogenation plant in Dalian, China, is utilising Swiss chemical firm Clariant’s Catofin catalyst. The new unit combines propane dehydrogenation (PDH) with…