Indian fine chemical and API firm Hikal has halted production of an unnamed product from its Crop Protection division at Taloja, near Mumbai, due to the current non-availability of industrial oxygen.

The company said that it anticipates an impact on sales of the product in question. It has kept customers informed and will work with them to make up for the shortfall in delivery in the coming quarters. Production will be ramped back up when industrial oxygen is available again.

Stepan has opened its new Agricultural Innovation Centre in Barrow County, Georgia, near to its manufacturing site in Winder and to two major universities. The location was chosen in part for a temperate climate that will facilitate year-round testing. The centre will carry our collaborative R&D with customers in the sector. Key features include:

* A training centre for formulation development, including a virtual collaboration lab for real-time customer support and formulation training from any location with an Internet connection

Cambrex has completed the upgrade of the kilo lab at its facility in Tallinn, Estonia, manufacture pharmaceutical intermediates to cGMP standards. The company said that this would “accelerate the progression and tech transfer of projects within the early clinical development phases”.

Kemira has opened a new dry polymer polyacrylamide (DPAM) plant in Ulsan, South Korea, and has also begun the pre-engineering phase for a third alkenyl succinic anhydride (ASA) sizing agents line at Nanjing in China. Both investments are targeted at the growing paper and board packaging market in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ashland is to carry out strategic review of its Performance Adhesives business unit, with a sale among the options, aided by Citi. This is expected to be complete by the end of the year. CEO Guillermo Novo said that the business has “demonstrated exceptional financial performance” and that a combination of available finance, low interest rates and improving global macroeconomic conditions should “create a supportive backdrop” for the sale.

Cepsa, the world’s largest producer of linear alkylbenzene (LAB) and cumene, has begun operations at its first site to use Detal technology in place of hydrofluoric acid, in the Puente Mayorga chemical plant at San Roque in southern Spain. LAB is the most widely used biodegradable surfactant in laundry detergents.

Cepsa developed the patented Detal technology with UOP. This was named in the Spanish section of the 2020 European Business Awards for the Environment and also won a technological innovation award at the ICIS Surfactants Awards, among others.

Global speciality chemicals and ingredients distributor IMCD has made two acquisitions in short order to bolster its position in Latin America and the Caribbean: Andes Chemical and, via its Colombian subsidiary, Siliconas y Químicos. It has also acquired Shanghai Yuanhe Chemicals in China.