The Belgian firm has been one of Europe’s most active chemical deal-makers. However, one stock analyst, Jefferies’ Yoshihiro Azuma, complained that Asahi is overpaying by $600 million and that the prospects for electric cars is underwhelming. Closer to home, Shin-Etsu is plunking down more than $100 million apiece on projects to expand photoresists in Taiwan and silicones in Thailand. The Japanese chemical maker has unveiled many capital projects over the past year. Big projects may be a core competency for the company. The biographers think van Gogh may have welcomed death and so did not accuse the boys while on his deathbed. Germs can linger in rat urine and feces after the rats themselves have been dispatched, too, so careful cleanup is important. On the LCD screen on the handle, users can see both particle size and quantity. Lanxess recorded a modest increase in operating profits and a small decline in sales in 2014, but the 2005 spin-off from Bayer believes it can do better. And, indeed, it managed to post solid gains in 2014, with profits climbing more than 17%. Last year, Huntsman bought Rockwood Holdings’ titanium dioxide unit. Air Products responded last year by ousting longtime CEO John E. McGlade and replacing him with Seifi Ghasemi, former head of Rockwood Specialties.

Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, who had led a turnaround at Rhodia, was tapped as Solvay’s new CEO. Huntsman shareholders were so worried about the drop in oil prices late last year that CEO Peter R. Huntsman felt compelled to issue a statement promising that the development is a good thing. Early last year, the firm parted with its longtime CEO, Axel C. Heitmann. Then late in the year, it launched a restructuring program that will cut 1,000 of its 16,000 employees. European petrochemical plant. Next year, its site in Stenungsund, Sweden, will begin receiving ethane deliveries. Lotte also plans an ethylene glycol plant downstream from the unit. Lotte was known as Honam Petrochemical until a series of acquisitions that culminated in a name change in 2012. By any name, the South Korean firm was rather obscure in the U.S. Like Ineos, Borealis plans to use ethane extracted from U.S. For example, simple garments like shirts or trousers made from standard fabrics might have lower base prices compared to more intricate pieces like dresses or suits made from delicate materials. Since then, about a dozen firms have followed suit, and a few plants are already under construction, including Chevron Phillips’s. Few personnel are in evidence.

Some are even Energy Star qualified, and not many makers of large refrigerators can claim that. Regardless of how it’s packaged, frozen food can keep for months or years — sometimes even for decades. Formed ov­er millions of years from compressed molten rock under the Earth’s surface, granite is extremely hard and durable. The modular design allows further expansion in the future – the proposed plan is to increase capacity to 3,000 tons of waste per day within a few years of operation. Its U.S. polyvinyl chloride subsidiary, Shintech, is moving ahead with plans to build a $1.4 billion ethylene cracker in Louisiana by 2018. The company also has been expanding capacity for vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride at its plant in Plaquemine, La. For example, along with Agrifos Partners, the company is studying a U.S. In 2011, Chevron Phillips was the first company in more than a decade to announce a new U.S.

The strong margins of the industrial gas business have been the envy of others in the chemical industry for more than a decade. Chevron Phillips participated in the Middle Eastern petrochemical building boom a decade ago with the establishment of joint ventures in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The partnership will include a polyethylene plant already running in Ulsan, South Korea, and possibly another plant to be built in Saudi Arabia. One of South Korea’s leading chemical makers, the company boasts metallocene polymer technology that is the focus of a joint venture it is forming with Saudi Basic Industries Corp. And among industrial gas makers, Praxair is a standout. Lower oil prices make turning natural gas into liquid fuels less profitable. The company says it wants to expand the use of the greenhouse gas as an industrial feedstock. Quick quiz: Name a chemical company being targeted by activist investor Daniel S. Loeb. Like DuPont, Dow Chemical, and DSM, Air Products has been targeted by an activist investor, in its case Pershing Square Capital Management, which is led by William A. Ackman.