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A research team from Caltech and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has demonstrated a promising way to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into ethylene — an important chemical used to produce plastics, solvents, cosmetics and other important products globally. The scientists developed nanoscale copper wires with specially shaped surfaces to catalyze a chemical reaction that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while generating ethylene — a valuable chemical simultaneously. Computational studies of the reaction show the shaped catalyst favors the production of ethylene over hydrogen or methane. A study detailing the advance was published in Nature Catalysis. Currently, ethylene has a global...

The dozen or so cranes visible from Interstate 10 in Baytown will only remain for a few more months as Chevron Phillips Chemical's $6 billion petrochemical expansion moves toward completion. Chevron Phillips' complex is more than 80 percent complete, although it won't be fully operational for almost another year. The project involves a massive ethane cracker - on a plot the size of 44 football fields - that will separate a component of natural gas called ethane, which will provide the feedstock for some 1.5 million metric tons a year of ethylene, a common building block of plastics. Chevron Phillips,...

Firefighters battled a blaze Monday aboard a ship in the Houston Ship Channel. The fire broke out before 10 a.m. on a ship docked near American Petroleum and Federal, officials said.

The underlying economics are still good and the concept remains solid, but the prospect of finding enough qualified people to actually build and staff it is too daunting – at least for now. Such are the conclusions of Houston-based Appalachian Resins, Inc. (AR), whose board earlier this month decided to put its "less-than-world-scale" ethane cracker project in Monroe County, Ohio, on hold. "Looking at the timing, we are not able to get ahead of the two other projects," Bob Mifflin, AR's president, told Rigzone. The "two other projects" to which Mifflin refers are world-scale ethane crackers proposed by PTT Global...

Ohio is standing on third base and ready to cross home plate in the development of a proposed $5.7 billion ethane cracker plant in eastern Ohio, Gov. John Kasich said Thursday. Kasich joined the CEO of the Thai company that wants to build the plant in outlining plans for a $100 million outlay over the next year for engineering and design work at the site to determine the project's future. Columbus Business First broke the story in April that the plant was being considered in Belmont County, near the heart of oil and natural gas exploration in the Utica shale...

Formosa Petrochemical considering building $9.4B production complex in Louisiana STEVE SANOSKI SEPTEMBER 3, 2015 Taiwan-based Formosa Petrochemical Corp. is studying the feasibility of building a $9.4 billion industrial complex in St. James Parish to produce ethylene and other chemical products, company officials and Gov. Bobby Jindal announced this afternoon. A final investment decision is expected in mid-2016. If Formosa decides the investment makes financial sense, it would move forward with construction on the first phase of the project in late 2016, with hiring to begin in 2018. The project would create 1,200 new direct jobs paying an average annual salary...

Chevron Phillips Chemical is considering adding yet another expansion to its Baytown plant, joining a wave of other petrochemical companies scrambling to take advantage of cheap raw materials unleashed by the U.S. shale boom. The company, which is already building a $6 billion expansion at the same Cedar Bayou plant, this week said it’s studying how to increase the plant’s capacity to produce polyalphaolefins, synthetic lubricants used in high-performance motor oils. “There’s a pretty strong demand for that and fairly limited supply worldwide,” Mark Lashier, executive vice president of olefins and polyolefins, said in an interview with Fuel Fix. “It’s...

Demetrius Perricos, who is leading one of the U.N. inspection teams in Iraq, said Wednesday his team of international arms experts secured about a dozen Iraqi artillery shells containing the mustard liquid agent.

Appalachian Resins, Inc. (AR) plans to lease approximately 50 acres of land in Salem Township, Ohio, to build an integrated 600 million pound per year ethylene/polyethylene production facility, the Houston-based firm announced in an emailed statement to DownstreamToday. "There is no difference in our development activities, we have essentially only moved across the Ohio River," James Cutler, AR's CEO, said Sunday after announcing his company's signing of a land lease letter of intent with the Monroe County (Ohio) Port Authority. "We will not be integrating with an existing operating (brownfield) facility but will be more of a 'greenfield' location. However,...

A series of loud explosions has been reported in the area of a Sun Oil ethylene facility in New Castle County.

The world's largest ethylene production complex, the Jam Petrochemical Plant, has been opened in the southern Iranian city of Asalouyeh. The complex will boast of an annual production of 1,321,000 tons of ethylene, which is widely used in industry and medicine, IRNA reported. The Jam Petrochemical Plant will increase its production to 4.2 million tons within the next few years. The complex was inaugurated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was accompanied by Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari, on Sunday in his visit to the port city of Asalouyeh -- home to Iran's giant South Pars gas field in the Persian...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A Missouri radio talk show host was arrested on murder charges Monday for allegedly poisoning his wife by spiking her Gatorade with a chemical found in antifreeze. James Keown, 31, was arrested at the radio station where he worked in Jefferson City, Mo. He later made a court appearance via video and said he would not fight efforts to return him to Massachusetts. Prosecutors said he slowly poisoned Julie Keown, 31, with ethylene glycol while the couple were living in Massachusetts in 2004. District Attorney Martha Coakley said the motive may have been financial: Julie Keown...