Company News

Dow Chemical Company will begin construction in November for the addition of a new ethylene furnace at its Oyster Creek plant located in Freeport, Texas.

India's state-owned refining and marketing firm Bharat Petroleum Corp. plans to expand the capacity of its Bombay refinery to 12 million metric tons a year from 6.90 million tons by October 2004.

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company NV, through its subsidiary Howe-Baker International, has won a contract from Valero Energy Corporation to design and build a 53,000 bpd gasoline desulpuhrisation unit at Valero's 243,000 bpd refinery in Texas City, Texas, USA.

Polyplastics Co. Ltd, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Inc. (MGC), Korea Engineering Plastics Co. Ltd (KEP) and Ticona, a business of Celanese AG, Frankfurt, have agreed on the construction of a world-scale 60,000 metric ton polyacetal (POM) facility in China.

Dortmund-based Uhde GmbH has been awarded a contract by Sinopec International in Beijing to engineer China’s biggest vinyl chloride (VCM) plant with a capacity of 400,000 tonnes per year.

Dow Chemical Co. is planning to build an ethylene plant in Seadrift, Texas.

Sunoco Inc. will build and operate a sulphur plant at the company's Marcus Hook Refinery.

Abbot Group (Aberdeen, Scotland) has announced a contract win in Iran worth more than GBP 16 million.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has signed a supplemental development agreement regarding the CFD 11-1/11-2 oilfields in 04/36 Block in Bohai Bay, with Kerr-McGee China Petroleum Limited, a subsidiary of Kerr-McGee Corp., and Sino-American Energy Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Ultra Petroleum Corp.

BASF Pharmachemikalien GmbH, Minden, Germany, a BASF Group company, plans to increase its annual capacity for Pseudoephedrine from 750 metric tons to 1000 metric tons.