Asia/Pacific
Fluor completes world-scale isononanol plant in China for BASF, Sinopec
The world-scale plant, which is a first-of-its-kind in China, was recently inaugurated by the owners and will serve the growing demand for next-generation plasticizers.
Improve acetylene hydrogenation selectivity using dynamic deactivation estimation
Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (SSPC) has been closely working with the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) on technical research to improve operational efficiency, reduce energy consumption and increase ethylene production.
Improve FCC margins by processing more vacuum residue in feed
With the greater processing of heavy crude oils in refineries, the importance of fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) has increased.
HP Viewpoint: Interesting times to continue for refiners in 2016
A year ago in this publication, John England and Ashnu Mittal were prescient in their article titled “US shale revolution set to spill over into downstream.”
HP Industry Metrics
Global refinery margins fell due to the expectations of a mild winter and an oversupply environment.
HP People
Michael D. Scott has been named an International Society of Automation (ISA) Fellow, a distinguished grade that is granted to ISA senior members in recognition of outstanding achievements in scientific or engineering fields.
Honeywell licenses methanol-to-olefins technology to Chinese coal project
LUXI will use UOP's advanced methanol-to-olefins (MTO) process to convert methanol derived from gasified coal into 293,000 tpy of ethylene and propylene at its facility in Liaocheng, Shandong Province.
LyondellBasell to buy polypropylene compounding business of India’s Zylog
Upon completion of the acquisition, LyondellBasell will double its automotive customer base in India and become the third largest producer of polypropylene (PP) compounds in the country.
Iran targets new investments in refineries abroad
"Buying the oil refineries or their shares abroad is the policy of Iran after the lifting of sanctions," said Abbas Kazemi, head of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co.
Indian Oil plans $500MM expansion of Panipat naphtha cracker by 2019
The expansion would increase capacity of the Panipat cracker in northern India from about 850,000 tpy to 1.2 MMtpy by 2019. It would cost about half-a-billion dollars, a company official said.

- hte conducts research for JGC to advance decarbonization by identifying suitable catalysts for ammonia cracking 6/26
- TES and CPC Finland to develop 500-MW e-NG project in Finland 6/26
- Brazil's Petrobras to increase biofuels mix in domestic fuels 6/26
- Vietnam says its refineries not yet affected by Middle East tensions 6/26
- U.S. signals possible easing of ethane export rules to China 6/26
- Global energy CO2 emissions reached record high last year 6/26