UK-based speciality chemicals company Elementis has announced that, by mutual agreement, CEO Paul Waterman will step down no later than the AGM in April 2025, remaining available as required for any transition or other support until the end of July. A successor is now being sought.
International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG), the owner of WeylChem and many other European chemical assets, has acquired the European Advanced Organics business of Valtris Specialty Chemicals. Terms were not disclosed. Valtris’s North American production of benzyl chloride at its Delaware River plant is not part of the deal.
BASF has formed a partnership with Slovenian white biotech Acies Bio. Under this it will further develop the latter’s OneCarbonBio fermentation platform to derive methanol for the production of fatty alcohols for home and personal care ingredients, notably surfactants.
A pilot enforcement project carried out by national enforcement authorities in 13 European Economic Area (EEA) countries between November 2023 and April 2024 found that 6% of about 4,500 cosmetic products inspected contained hazardous substances. The project was undertaken under the auspices of ECHA’s Enforcement Forum.
The authorities looked mainly for the presence of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), long chain perfluorocarboxylic acids and related substances, plus two cyclic siloxanes. They found 285 of the cosmetics included hazardous chemicals, notably:
Spanish energy and chemicals company Cepsa has renamed itself Moeve. This is described as part of the Positive Motion strategy, under which the company is seeking to position itself as “a leader in sustainable energy and mobility” with most of its profits coming from sustainable activities by 2030.
The company is already decarbonising its operations through an €8 billion investment strategy. Over 60% of this will be dedicated to sustainable businesses, including the production of green hydrogen, 2G biofuels, sustainable chemical products and ultra-fast electric charging.
India’s Sudarshan Chemical Industries (SCIL) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Heubach Group in a move that it said would “create a global pigment company, combining SCIL’s operations and expertise with Heubach’s technological capabilities”. Terms were not disclosed.
Belgian start-up AmphiStar has launched what it claims are the first fully upcycled biobased surfactants under the trade names AmphiCare and AmphiClean. These are produced “using clean biological conversion processes and derived from local, organic biowaste and side streams from agri-food processing”.
