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In December, LyondellBasell announced plans to close its Houston refinery by year-end 2023, but the company has decided to extend the business exit to no later than the end of the first quarter 2025. Positive inspections and consistent performance have given the company confidence to continue safe and reliable operations at the Houston, TX, site. LyondellBasell anticipates moderate maintenance spend to support this extension in 2023 and 2024 but remains committed to ceasing operation…

As much as it might annoy anti-plastics zealots, you can’t really say infrastructure without mentioning plastic pipes. The federal infrastructure bill is pumping some money into replacing aging, corroded, and often lead-laden iron pipes, and the material of choice is plastic for engineers, contractors, and municipal officials. Data from the Plastics Pipe Institute Inc. (PPI), which represents North America’s plastic pipes industry, bear this out. “During 2022, according to our…

Injection molding giant Arburg has named Martin Baumann new CEO of the company’s vital 33-year-old US subsidiary. With more than 13,000 Arburg injection molding machines installed in North America, the region overseen by Arburg Inc. is the parent company’s largest foreign market. Baumann took the helm Thursday and will undergo an “intensive familiarization program in the United States in close cooperation with the headquarters in Lossburg, Germany, to prepare him…

Round two of negotiations toward a global plastics treaty is in the books, and the competing aims of stakeholders — more recycling vs. reduced plastics production and limits on hazardous chemicals — were on full display. Wrangling over rules of procedure kicked off the second of five sessions of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2) that wrap up today at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),…