LG in Oman joint venture
South Korean trading firm LG International Corp has said it is forming a $1 billion joint venture in Oman with two oil firms from the Gulf state to produce and sell petrochemical products.

State-run Oman Oil Company will hold a 60 per cent stake in Aromatics Oman LLC, while Oman Refinery Company (ORC) and the Korean firm will hold 20 per cent each, LG said in a statement.
The venture, which will be operational from the third quarter of 2008, will produce 800,000 tonnes of paraxylene (PX) and 200,000 tonnes of benzene

Methanol alliance formed
Foster Wheeler announced that its Italian subsidiary Foster Wheeler Italiana and the Swiss company Methanol Casale had formed a groundbreaking strategic alliance under which the two will cooperate to serve the methanol production market worldwide.
    This alliance builds on the strengths of the two companies in their respective fields. Casale is a leading supplier of methanol technology and has extensive plant experience, and Foster Wheeler has a long and successful track record in the engineering, procurement and construction of process plants and catalytic reforming furnaces.

BASF to raise capacity
BASF is raising its annual capacity to produce ethanolamines from 182,000 to 230,000 tonnes, the company announced.
The progressive capacity increase of plants at the two integrated Verbund sites of Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium, is to be completed by fall 2006.
“We are responding to the continuing high level of external and internal demand for these products,” said Dr. Winfried Muller, head of the Regional Business Unit Amines within BASF’s intermediates operating division. BASF counts among the most important global suppliers of amines and is the market leader for ethanolamines in Europe.
“This high demand is driven by a recovery of the agricultural sector and steady and strong growth in the detergents market. Especially as regards monoethanolamine, demand is clearly up in the wood preservatives sector,” Muller added.