1 .Stone & Webster Ltd., UK, to construct an Olefins Plant with a production capacity of 1,300,000 MT per annum of Ethylene;

2. Samsung Engineering Company Ltd., South Korea, to construct its Ethylene Glycol Plant with a production capacity of 700,000 MT per annum (increasing overall Ethylene Glycol production capacity to more than 2,000,000 MT per annum).

3. Linde, Germany, to construct its Linear Low and High Density Polyethylene plants with a production capacity of 800,000 MT per annum, which will increase polyolefins production at SHARQ to reach more than 1,600,000 MT per annum.

Mohamed Al-Mady, SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO said, "SHARQ's expansion project will add 2.8m MT annually to SABIC's production and will further enhance SHARQ's position as the world's largest single producer of Ethylene Glycol. This will also enhance SABIC's global ranking alongside the other global petrochemicals companies who produce this product. SABIC is currently ranked 2nd and is expected to become number one once this project comes on stream. SABIC is the world's 3rd largest producer of polyethylene and number four for polyolefins."

The agreements will cover engineering, procurement and construction of the plants at the SHARQ affiliate in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. These will be complete by the first quarter of 2008.

Traditionally, larger synthetic oligonucleotides are analyzed by capillary electrophoresis and by PAGE analysis. When molecular weight information is needed, MALDI-TOF mass analysis is carried out. Traditional MALDI-TOF MS analysis while rapid (<5 seconds per sample) and relatively simple, provides inadequate mass spectra data if any, for larger oligonucleotides. This is due primarily to poor ionization of the large oligonucleotides.

With the integrated Novatia LC-MS system, Sigma-Genosys is able to obtain high quality mass analysis of larger oligonucleotides. Traditional LC-MS techniques can be time consuming and not amenable to high throughput analysis.

The LC-MS system by Novatia along with their methods and their automated post-analysis software provides Sigma-Genosys with a high throughput (one sample per minute) LC-MS technique for the analyses of larger oligonucleotides. The well-integrated instrument and protocols developed by Novatia reduced the IOQ (installation/operating qualification) time to days from the weeks normally associated with high-technology analytical systems.

The Novatia system also provides Sigma-Genosys with the ability to obtain higher quality mass spectra data in a high throughput format. The improved resolution obtained by LC-MS provides more accurate molecular weight of the larger oligonucleotides. This allows detection of base substitutions as well as being able to determine the presence and identification of potential contaminates and base deletions.

"PTTPE's Lupotech T plant will be one of the largest LDPE plants in the world when it is operational in 2008," said Just Jansz, president of Basell's Technology Business, who participated in a signing ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand. "In addition, the Lupotech T process features low manufacturing costs, fast start-up and grade changes, and a high on-stream factor. "

Earlier this year, three new Lupotech T plants, each with an annual capacity of 200 KT, started up in the People's Republic of China.