Category: Industrial

Lyndsay Tran, Khanh Pham and Gabriela Olvera of Hatch look at the options for rare earth element (REE) recovery from phosphogypsum (PG) and their relative merits.

Green methanol has begun to be shipped to Austria's OMV from the Solar Park Kasso plant. The plant is operated by a joint venture between Mitsui & Co., Ltd, with a 49% share, and renewable energy company European Energy A/S (51%). The plant, located in Kassø, southern Denmark, was inaugurated on 13 May 2025 and is based on hydrogen derived from solar electricity from the adjacent 304 MW Kassø Solar Park, which is then combined with biogenic CO2 and distilled to 99.9% purity, suitable for combustion engines and plastics production. The plant makes 42,000 t/a of green methanol.

The Indian government is considering a new financial relief package for its domestic fertilizer industry aimed at protecting its agricultural sector from volatile global markets, according to a Department of Fertilizers (DoF) document dated 14 August. The proposal directly addresses the impact of the "West Asia crisis" on key raw material costs.

Worley says that it has been awarded an engineering services contract by United States Strategic Metals to support the development of a multi-metallic processing hub in Missouri, United States. This will include the development of a cobalt refinery and a black mass recycling process line.

A round-up of current and proposed projects involving non-nitrogen synthesis gas derivatives, including methanol, synthetic/substitute natural gas (SNG) and gas- and coal to liquids (GTL/CTL) plants.

On May 23, a drone attack was reportedly carried out on the Metafrax methanol plant in Russia’s Perm region, according to state media. According to the region’s governor, Dmitry Makhonin, there were no casualties. Metafrax Chemicals was previously attacked in September 2025, and February 17 and March 11, 2026. In February, local residents reported at least six explosions, and plant workers were evacuated.

Methanex says that it has been unable to agree to a new natural gas contract for its 860,000 t/a Titan methanol plant in Trinidad and Tobago, and, as a result, will begin the process of indefinitely idling the facility. Titan’s existing natural gas contract expires in the third quarter of 2026. Methanex says that it will undertake a preservation process at the Titan plant to provide options for a future restart should conditions materially improve. The neighbouring 1/7 million t/a Atlas methanol plant, a joint venture in which Methanex holds a 63.1% economic interest, remains indefinitely idled in a preserved state.

JSW Steel says that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bharatia and Carbon Iceland International to develop a 300,000 t/a green methanol facility. The plant will capture carbon dioxide emissions from JSW Steel’s existing Raigad facility in Maharashtra state, and combine them with hydrogen produced from water electrolysis using renewable electricity. Under the […]

SunGas Renewables Inc. has said that it will cease further development of the Beaver Lake Biofuels project, a proposed wood fibre-to-low carbon methanol facility in Louisiana. The project was to have involved integrating three of SunGas S1000 syngas production systems with downstream technologies to produce approximately 553,000 t/a of low carbon methanol, and geological storage […]

Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, said on June 3rd that it had begun a planned 60-day maintenance shutdown of its Nchanga smelter in Zambia. KCM said that the routine maintenance is aimed at improving operational efficiency, equipment reliability, and long-term production performance, and forms part of the company’s broader modernisation strategy, […]