BASF plans to build a production plant for formic acid at its integrated “Verbund” site in Geismar, La. The new plant will have an annual capacity of more than 50,000 tons. Start-up of the new plant is expected in the second quarter 2014. When completed, the project would be the only formic acid production plant in North America. BASF currently operates two formic acid production plants located in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Nanjing, China, with a total annual capacity of more than 255,000 tons. Both formic acid and potassium formate are used in the oil field industry as part of the drilling
Hatch Mott MacDonald expanded its footprint in Lousiana with the aquisition of New Orleans-based Lambert Engineers, May 14. The deal enables Hatch Mott MacDonald to bolster it suite of engineering services, covering the transportation, environmental, coastal, oil & gas, and water sectors. Company executives noted that the acquisition also adds experienced staff, who are members of the local community and understand its needs. “Joining Hatch Mott MacDonald offers our local staff the expertise and resources that we need to undertake significant engineering and environmental projects in southern Louisiana,” said Dennis Lambert, a principal owner of Lambert Engineers, in a statement.
Even as government agencies appear to be showing more austerity in their construction budgets, public projects are still making up the vast majority of big new projects in the region. Public projects outnumber private work 2-to-1 on the ENR Texas and Louisiana Top Starts ranking for 2011. More than $12.1 billion worth of projects, each valued at more than $50 million, broke ground in 2011, an increase from 2010. Many contractors reaped the rewards. "In Texas, we are having the best year we've ever had," says Gary Nauert, regional manager in Texas for DPR Construction Inc., Austin. He says DPR
It was an imposing task: to connect the remote but windy areas of Texas to the state's power grid with modern, efficient transmission lines that would carry needed wind energy to population centers. The Texas Legislature took on the task in 2005, passing a law establishing the state's competitive renewable energy zones (CREZ). Seven years later, a dozen companies and hundreds of contractors and subcontractors are close to finishing the work.When complete next year, the $6.95-billion CREZ project will have 3,500 miles of new 345-kV transmission lines that will move up to 18,500 MW of wind power across the state.
Bill Steele was promoted to vice president of Sundt Construction's Texas district. He previously served as manager of preconstruction services in the district's San Antonio headquarters. In his new role, Steele will oversee preconstruction efforts and estimating for local and state projects in the state. During his tenure at Sundt, Steele held the positions of senior estimator and preconstruction project manager at the company's Tempe, Ariz., headquarters. Kurt Knebel was hired as vice president of civil operations for the Texas division of McCarthy Building Cos. He will focus on project management, oversight and executive leadership of the division's transportation business
With the launch of its $2.3-billion Terminal Renewal and Improvement Program, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport faces one of the most daunting tasks in its nearly 40-year history.
Are capital-intensive subcontractors with substantial fabricating operations the most likely not to make it through to the end of the construction recession?That’s a question prime contractors could ask in light of the latest major subcontractor default.Austin Industries, the big commercial and industrial contactor, says of its four projects on which Trainor Glass Co. was serving as a subcontractor, three were nearly completed and are running on schedule and the fourth is in a very early stage and is unlikely to be affected.Based in Farmers Branch, Texas, Trainor Glass shut its doors at nine locations where it had operations Feb. 22
McKim & Creed, an engineering, surveying and planning firm with offices throughout the Southeast, announced that it has acquired a 31-person AECOM survey operation based in Texas, formerly known as SURVCON. The Texas group will operate under the name SURVCON, a Division of McKim & Creed. The acquisition allows McKim & Creed and SURVCON to bring innovative Geomatics technologies to clients in the transportation, energy and institutional industries, according to a company announcement. SURVCON’s operations were established in Houston during 1974 and provide surveying and aerial mapping services from offices in Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Georgetown, Texas.
DFW International Airport revealed plans for a new $175-milion Terminal A Parking facility, March 1. The Terminal A Parking structure is a new component of the Terminal Renewal and Improvement Program (TRIP), the seven-year $1.9 billion program which will renew DFW’s four original terminals.The 3-million-sq-ft, five-level parking facility, designed by Jacobs, falls under the scope of the BARC joint venture, which consists of Balfour Beatty Construction, Azteca Enterprises, H.J. Russell & Company, and CARCON Industries. With BARC serving as construction manager-at-risk, a general contractor will be selected to build the parking facility. The winning bidder should be announced within the
A $1.7-billion expansion of Formosa Plastics’ Point Comfort, Texas, site could create an estimated 1,800 construction jobs, according to the company. The Chinese petrochemical company announced the project this week, noting that the expansion would enable it to “take advantage of the increasingly reliable and low-cost domestic natural gas.” The investment consists of a new 800,000 MT/Y olefins cracker, an associated 600,000 MT/Y propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit and a new 300,000 MT/Y low density polyethylene (LDPE) resin plant. It will create an estimated 1800 construction jobs and, once completed, an additional 225 long-term operating and maintenance jobs, according to the
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