Saudi Aramco and Total start testing Jubail refinery

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Effective immediately, Dow is eliminating the current business division structure and move to a global business unit model that will have business presidents. The presidents will be accountable for generating increased earnings and the accelerated advancement and execution of Dow's strategy.

Effective immediately, Dow will eliminate the current business division structure and move to a global business unit model that will have business presidents, the company said.

The business presidents will be fully accountable for generating increased earnings, and the accelerated advancement and execution of company strategy. The business presidents will report to a newly-formed executive committee.

The committee will set the overall direction and strategy for Dow, monitor and deliver results, and optimize resource deployment across the businesses, according to the company. The committee will be headed by Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris.

Others include James R. Fitterling, executive vice president, who will have executive oversight of feedstocks and performance plastics in Asia and Latin America.

Dow said the business presidents will be announced later this week.
MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by Shell Global Solutions to develop the basic engineering package for a world-scale mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) facility at Ras Laffan, Qatar.

The value of the contract was not disclosed and will be included in the company’s third-quarter 2012 bookings. The MEG facility will be part of a new petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City being developed by a joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and Shell.

The two-train MEG facility, based on Shell’s OMEGA technology, is planned to produce 1.5 million tpy of MEG. Foster Wheeler was previously the front-end engineering design and engineering, procurement and construction management contractor for Shell’s OMEGA-based MEG plant on Jurong Island in Singapore, officially opened in December 2009.

"We believe our project execution performance on Shell’s MEG facility in Singapore, one of the world’s largest MEG facilities, was world class, and was a key factor in positioning us for this award," said Umberto della Sala, chief operating officer for Foster Wheeler.
MRC

(plasteurope) -- German automotive supplier Plastal’s plant in Hambach, France announced that the French plant had joined a string of other Plastal facilities that have become part of French automotive giant Faurecia (Nanterre). This means the financial restructuring of the German group, which is specialised on the production of plastic parts for car bodies and bumpers and had filed for insolvency in early 2009 has now been wrapped up.

Over the course of the last few years, Faurecia acquired most of Plastal’s plants in a piecemeal fashion, starting with the group’s six German sites as well as its operation in Spain. This approach has safeguarded all the sites’ operations as well as the almost 3,000 employees whose livelihoods had been threatened by the insolvency.

MRC

(plasteurope) -- The Medical Plastic Systems (MPS) business unit of Gerresheimer (Dusseldorf / Germany) is expanding its plant in Dongguan / China into a competence centre for the injection moulding, printing and assembly of medical devices. In a move aimed at reducing production costs, the company plans to start the manufacture of price-sensitive products including lancing devices and lancets at its plant in Pfreimd / Germany, and then transfer the process to China.

Gerresheimer's operations in Dongguan already boast 15 injection moulding machines "By combining our European development and industrialisation competency with the production potential in China, we are able to offer our customers customised solutions with attractive production costs," said Manfred Baumann, the COO of Gerresheimer Regensburg. By now, the company has set up an entire process chain for lancing devices in Dongguan, including 15 injection moulding machines, two semi-automatic assembly units including welding installations, as well as six Kent printing machines for pad printing.

The transfer of the industrialisation process from the company’s technical company centre in Wackersdorf, Germany to Dongguan is overseen by Gerresheimer’s Production Coordination Unit.
MRC