Italian police have seized a yacht owned by Andrey Melnichenko, owner of leading European fertilizer producer EuroChem, days after the Russian billionaire was hit with EU sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine, and the deal to acquire the Borealis nitrogen assets collapsed.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and leading methanol producer Proman have signed an agreement to develop the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first world-scale methanol plant. The facility will be located at the Ta’ziz Industrial Chemicals Zone in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, and capable of producing up to 1.8 million t/y.
US multinational gases group Air Products has announced plans to build, own and operate a green liquid hydrogen plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. The zero-carbon facility, which will have capacity of 10 t per day, is expected to go on stream in 2023. It will also include a terminal for distributing the gas to the mobility market in California and other locations.
Another European chemicals deal has been torpedoed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Borealis has announced it will not go ahead with plans to sell its nitrogen business, including fertilizer, melamine and technical nitrogen products, to Russian-owned, Swiss-based fertilizer producer EuroChem.
LanzaTech and carbon technology firm Twelve have created ethanol from CO2 emissions as part of an ongoing research and development partnership. The process uses Twelve’s carbon transformation technology and LanzaTech’s small continuous stirred tank reactor in an approach that the companies said is highly scalable to industrial quantities, while simultaneously eliminating CO2 emissions.
Swiss CDMO Lonza has completed a planned laboratory expansion at its active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) manufacturing site at Nansha, China and plans to begin operation on Mar. 22.
Private equity investor Cinven is poised to acquire Bayer’s Environmental Science Professional (ESP) unit, Bloomberg has reported. The news agency’s sources said the buyer of the business put up for sale a year ago was expected to be announced in the early part of March this year.
The founder and CEO of Ukrainian contract research organization (CRO) Enamine, Andrey Tomalchov, has won global attention with his appeal to the life science industry to support the country’s pharmaceutical research in a time of crisis.
US oilfield products and services supplier Halliburton has opened a chemicals plant at the PlasChem Park in Saudi Arabia. The Halliburton Chemical Reaction Plant – said to be the first of its kind in the Kingdom – will manufacture a broad range of chemicals for the oil and gas value chain, as well as many other industries.
US biopharma AbbVie is to take over Belgian biotech Syndesi Therapeutics, in a move that will expand its neuroscience portfolio. Under the agreed terms, AbbVie will pay Syndesi shareholders an upfront sum of $130 million, with potential additional payments of up to $870 million contingent on achieving certain milestones.
US specialty materials manufacturer Aceto has acquired Biotron Laboratories and affiliate Talus Mineral, expanding its nutraceuticals business and strengthening its life sciences footprint. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Two German biotechs, RNA vaccines specialist BioNTech and Medigene, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company focusing on the development of T cell immunotherapies, have entered a three-year multi-target research collaboration to develop T cell receptor (TCR) based immunotherapies against cancer.
After two years of relative quiet on the drilling front between the market glut and the coronavirus pandemic, US interest in shale is picking up again as energy prices soar in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dutch multinational specialty chemicals and ingredients distributor IMCD has acquired Evonlode Foods in the UK. Based in Oxford, Evonlode’s activities are mostly in the beverage, bakery, nutrition, savory and dessert markets, serving customers in manufacturing, retail and foodservice.
Major US-based multinational energy company Chevron has agreed to buy Renewable Energy Group (REG) in an all-cash transaction valued at $3.15 billion. Both companies’ boards of directors have approved the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2022. REG shareholders have yet to give their approval.
Under pressure from economic sanctions imposed on Russian assets by Europe and the US after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wintershall Dea, the German oil and gas producer owned to 67% by BASF said it will write off its €1.1 billion financing of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project and will not pursue any new projects in Russia.
IDT Biologika, a German CDMO specialized in vaccines, gene and immune therapy and oncolytic viruses, is collaborating with Belgian CDMO Exothera on developing a large-scale manufacturing process for viral vector-based vaccines. The two firms are currently conducting a feasibility study focused on the Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) virus as a first project to come out of IDT’s broad range of vector technologies.
Germany-based globally focused chemicals distributor Brenntag has entered the Israeli specialty chemicals distribution market, acquiring Y.S Ashkenazi Agencies and its subsidiary, Biochem Trading. Brenntag said signing and closing of the acquisition took place simultaneously. Financial terms were not disclosed.
ExxonMobil is expanding its carbon capture and storage (CCS) capabilities at two sites in the US, namely Baytown in Texas, and LaBarge in Wyoming. The projects are part of plans to reduce CO2 emissions and reach a target of net zero across its operations by 2050.
Axens and Univation Technologies have entered into a cooperation agreement to improve capital and operating efficiencies for the production of on-purpose linear alpha olefins (LAO), including both butene-1 and hexene-1 used to make PE resins by the Unipol Process.
DuPont Sustainable Solutions has been rebranded as DSS+ with effect from Feb. 28. After separating from parent DuPont in September 2019 in a spinoff backed by Swiss private equity group Gyrus Capital, the company became an independent consulting firm to industrial sectors such as chemicals, oil & gas, mining, metals and manufacturing.
Under order from a US federal judge in Texas, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Mar. 1 began publishing information relating to Pfizer’s application for approval of the Covid-19 vaccine it developed together with Germany’s BioNTech.
Full-service CDMO CordenPharma is making a major investment to increase lipid manufacturing capacity at its CordenPharma Chenôve facility near Dijon, France. The project is one of 25 based on mRNA technology that the French government is backing with altogether €585 million.
Health Canada has approved the recombinant Covid-19 vaccine produced by Canadian biotech Medicago that uses the pandemic adjuvant made by British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline. The shot marketed as Covifenz uses a plant-based virus-like particles technology to imitate the coronavirus’ spike protein.
US pharma group Merck & Co is collaborating with Curve Therapeutics, a privately-held UK biotech that has developed a proprietary functional drug discovery platform called Microcycle. The partners aim to discover and validate modulators of up to five therapeutic targets using Microcycle, initially for oncology and neurology indications.
Under the brand name VynoEcoSolutions, European PVC and chlor-alkali producer Vynova has launched a new range of potassium (K) derivatives that it claims have the lowest carbon footprint available on the market.
The Antwerp@C project, which aims to halve the Port of Antwerp’s CO2 emissions, has started engineering studies following the completing of a feasibility study last year. The engineering studies will further investigate constructing a central “backbone” throughout the port, along the industrial zones on both the Right and Left Banks of the River Scheldt.
Hot on the heels of BP’s decision to quit its Russian shareholding, Shell and Equinor have announced they too will exit their joint ventures in the country, following its invasion of Ukraine.
Air Liquide has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pertamina to explore solutions for decarbonizing the Indonesian national energy company’s operations. The partnership will contribute toward Indonesia’s efforts to meet its ambition of reaching Net Zero by 2060.
US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, have finalized a long-negotiated nationwide settlement linked to their responsibility for the opioid addiction crisis.
Western energy companies pursuing projects with Russia are feeling the heat after that country’s invasion of Ukraine, and UK giant BP has become the first to announce plans to sever business ties.
US drugmaker Eli Lilly is investing about $700 million to establish an institute for researching and developing genetic medicines at a new site in the Seaport area of Boston, Massachusetts.
Australian engineering group Worley has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with technology heavyweights ABB and IBM to develop an integrated, digitally enabled solution that will assist energy companies in building green hydrogen assets more quickly, cheaply, and safely, and operating them more efficiently.
As part of an expansion project for its US site in Theodore, Alabama, German specialty chemicals producer Evonik plans to invest $176.5 million in a new methyl mercaptan plant. The chemical is used to make MetAmino (DL-methionine), which is used in livestock feed.
California carbon-negative materials company Origin Materials has selected a site in Geismar, Louisiana, USA, to build its first world-scale facility for manufacturing plant-based PET. The decision remains subject to local economic incentives – estimated to be worth more than $100 million – before being finalized.
