News in brief

Elf Atochem's fertilisers subsidiary, Grand Paroisse, is to expand its ammonia, nitric acid and urea plants in Toulouse at a cost of some FFr160 million. Ammonia and urea capacity will be increased by 50000tpa each, to a total of 320000tpa; the new plants will come on stream in late 2000.

Rise in USPE demand

Demand for polyethylene resin in the USis set to increase by 3.6 per cent/yr, reaching 13.6 million t by 2002, according to market researchers at the Freedonia Group. High- and linear low-density resins will lead the charge, with conventional low-density and ethyl vinyl acetate lagging behind. Packaging will continue to be the largest end-use; however, the fastest growth will be in sectors such as cable insulation, toys and housewares. Freedonia expects prices for metallocene-derived resins to fall as installed capacity expands.

Extra staff for AEA Software

AEA Technology's Canadian software subsidiary, Hyprotech, is to recruit 110 people worldwide, increasing its staffing level by 50 per cent. The increase is to support development of batch processing software and the HYSYS plant life-cycle solution system.

Dome, sweet dome

Fluor Daniel GTI has scooped one of the annual TCE safety and environment awards for its work in cleaning up contaminated soil at the Millennium Dome site in Greenwich (mere yards from Process Engineering's offices). FDGTI installed 300 vapour extraction wells over the 10.6acre site, a former gasworks; these were connected via 5km of piping and manifolds to six high-capacity blowers, which drew impacted vapours to the surface. 'The 105t of contaminant mass withdrawn from the site during just 120 days of operation is unprecedented,' comments FD GTI md John Waters.

Slow filter to China

Liquid filtration markets in the US and Europe are set to grow, but this will be offset by slow growth in Asia, according to McIlvaine's market researchers. The world liquid filtration market will reach $2 billion by 2000, they predict.