It has been confirmed that the 10th Annual Chemspec Events Scholarship Golf Outing will go ahead on 21 September 21 at the Manufacturers’ Golf & Country Club in F

India's UPL, which is now the world’s fifth largest agrochemical firm, has announced the opening of its ‘OpenAg Centre’ in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company has already begun recruiting the 30 agricultural scientists and technical staff who will staff it.

Nouryon plans to expand its capacity for monochloroacetic acid (MCA) at Delfzijl, Netherlands, by the end of 2020. Together with the opening of a new joint venture plant in India later this year, which will increase its global capacity by 20%.

Momentive Performance Materials has outlined what it calls “a series of steps to accelerate its global transition from commodity basics chemicals to speciality silicones”. By the end, it expects to have 300 fewer employees in the Capital Region, where it is also considering investment in R&D facilities.

Ineos used the occasion of the British Grand Prix on 1 August, where it was sponsoring the Mercedes team, to launch Ineos Hygienics, its new global healthcare business. This will be based at Newton Aycliffe, UK, and produce hospital grade hand gels, sanitiser sprays for hands and surfaces and sanitiser wipes out of the facilities the firm converted earliest this year here and in France, Germany and the US.

BASF has announced plans to provide total product carbon footprints (PCFs), measuring CO₂ emissions for all of its 45,000 sales products. It has been doing this for individual products since 2007 and, using an in-house digital system, will do this for the full range by the end of 2021.

Croda International has started construction on its North American headquarters and innovation centre near Princeton, New Jersey. Due to be completed before the end of 2020, this will bring together commercial and technical teams from across its business areas, enabling Croda to further optimise collaboration with customers in North America.