Zeon boosts Mizushima DCPD capacity by 20% to feed its fast-growing COP optical film business – Global News Digest, 18 May 2026

War & Supply Chain Shock

Eleven weeks of Hormuz disruption pushes Asia's naphtha crisis into a full structural emergency

South Korea's FTC raids LG Chem and Hanwha over suspected PVC and plasticiser price-fixing

Industry Reckoning

Trinseo, Plastic Energy and a dozen others buckle as global chemicals enters a brutal downturn

Trinseo files for Chapter 11 to slash $2 billion in debt while keeping all operations running

Mega Deals & Expansions

Hengyi bets $3.8 billion on world's largest coal-to-ethylene glycol plant to escape oil volatility

Zeon boosts Mizushima DCPD capacity by 20% to feed its fast-growing COP optical film business

Modi-ADNOC oil storage deal breathes life into India's long-stalled Chandikhol reserve project

Saudi Chemical locks in a five-year $198 million TNT supply deal with the kingdom's defence arm

Blue Origin order win puts INOX India on the launchpad for more big aerospace cryo contracts

RadiciGroup and DOMO Engineered Materials unite under Lone Star to build a specialty polymers titan

Innovation & Green Tech

UPM buys Avantium's Ray Technology patents to widen its bio-glycol IP moat at Leuna biorefinery

Sunfire brings its 89%-efficient SOEC hydrogen tech to BASF's Schwarzheide industrial park

LanzaTech picks Ghent for Europe's first commercial alcohol-to-jet SAF plant next to ArcelorMittal

Chinese researchers turn cheap quartz sand into nano-silica that outperforms TEOS in marine coatings

Dual-siloxane WPU coating achieves 148° water contact angle without a single fluorine atom

Market & Financial Results

Fineotex's US oilfield acquisition drives Q4 revenue up 162% and PAT up 118% year on year

Endurance races to triple ABS capacity to 18.4 lakh units as India mandates two-wheeler safety

Policy & Regulation

UN's FAO warns recycled plastic rush risks chemical contamination in food packaging globally

Kuraray raises elastomer prices by $0.33 per kg globally from June 1 as input costs pile up

Vizag collector launches Swarna Andhra drive to make district a plastic-free model for the state