The base-case outlook for the film and sheet segments of the plastics industry in the coming months is mixed. There are some positive forces in the market which should support demand for these products. But there are also some negative forces which will constrain growth in the near term. If I were to draw a
Read More...Washington — SC Johnson & Son Inc. is leaving the Plastics Industry Association, the latest large consumer products maker to exit the business group in a dispute over environmental policies. Greenpeace USA said in a Sept. 24 news release that Racine, Wis.-based SC Johnson told the environmental group it left the plastics association. That follows
Read More...Indonesia’s state-run PT Pertamina EP is preparing to launch an EOR project in the aging Tanjung Field in south Kalimantan, the first of eight fields identified for an oil production revival program. The company will use surfactant polymer injection in the Tanjung Field to pump oil from reservoirs that can’t be extracted through the conventional
Read More...XNG CNG truck crash (Credit: Broome County Sheriff) What is arguably the worst-case scenario for a virtual pipeline company has happened–and it happened not more than 10 miles as the crow flies from MDN HQ. Early Monday morning a compressed natural gas (CNG) truck from Xpress Natural Gas (XNG) was traveling up Interstate 88 near
Read More...There is no way to track exactly how much royalty revenue is received by Pennsylvania landowners, because royalty income is not reported separately on the Pennsylvania income tax return. Royalty income is combined with rental, patent and copyright income on line 6 of the PA-40 state income tax return. However, the crack researchers at the
Read More...The Sierra Club, along with some lesser-known but equally radical enviro groups, filed a court challenge to an air quality permit granted by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for the PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker plant project in Belmont County, OH back in January (see Radical Green Groups Appeal Ohio Cracker Plant Air Permit). Yesterday
Read More...Pennsylvania is the #2 top producing natural gas state in the union, producing 6.2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 2018. Ohio is the #5 top producing natgas state, producing 2.4 Tcf last year. However, West Virginia is rapidly moving up the ranks. In 2018, WV produced 1.8 Tcf of natural gas, the #7 spot, thanks
Read More...Left to Right: Preston McEachern CEO PurLucid, Chris Frantz VP Business Development Eureka, Dan Ertel CEO Eureka, and Jared Lazerson CEO MGX (click for larger version) In March, MDN brought you the news that Eureka Resources, which owns and operates three centralized treatment/recycling facilities that process flowback/produced waters (i.e. wastewater) from the Marcellus Shale, announced
Read More...Dutch chemicals company LyondellBasell Industries NV (LBI) has started up the fifth polypropylene compounding line at its Knapsack production site in Germany, which is now claimed by the company to be the world’s largest PP compounding facility. The recently started up 25-kilotonne-per-annum (ktpa) line has raised total production capacity at the site to over 200 ktpa, LBI
Read More...The ResolVe project, which was launched in 2017 to study the chemical recycling of polystyrene has borne fruit: Ineos Styrolution has announced in a Sept. 22 statement that it has proof of concept of closed-loop recycling, thus establishing the recyclability of polystyrene. The technology converts waste polystyrene back to pure styrene via a depolymerization process. The
Read More...NEW YORK—Facing rising anger from young people for their role in accelerating climate change, chief executives of major oil companies launched an effort on Sept. 23 to burnish their image on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Action Summit. The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, representing 13 major global oil companies, held meetings with
Read More...China’s national offshore producer CNOOC Ltd. expects its major deepwater gas field Lingshui 17-2 in the South China Sea to start producing natural gas at the end of 2021, a company executive said on Sept. 24. Chinese state-run energy producers are raising spending on domestic oil and gas drilling to multi-year highs this year, with
Read More...This past weekend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) paid a visit to Colorado and took the opportunity to tweet out fear-mongering nonsense about the oil and gas industry without bothering to confirm any facts beforehand. Namely, Ocasio-Cortez incorrectly characterized heat picked up on an infrared camera as “toxic fumes” and publicized results from volatile organic compound
Read More...Norway’s oil output fell by 10.1% year-on-year in August to 1.353 million barrels of oil equivalents per day, lagging official forecast by 4%, the country’s Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Sept. 24. Daily natural gas output fell by 19.8% from the year before, lagging forecasts by 11.3%, the NPD added. The most important causes for
Read More...Howell, Mich. — A lot can happen in three years. For French automotive supplier Novares Group SA, the changes are not only evident in the company’s name, but also in its swift short-term and steady long-term strategies. That includes a change in ownership, acquisition activity, a companywide rebranding, a canceled initial public offering and the
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