On 11 October 2018, Magna celebrated the official opening of a new seating facility in Chomutov, Czech Republic. Production is expected to start before the end of 2018. The plant will supply seating systems in various configurations for several BMW Group models.

Icynene-Lapolla, a global supplier of energy-efficient building envelope solutions, announced that it will expand distribution of the company’s Lapolla building materials line in Canada. As part of the effort, a suite of Lapolla’s spray polyurethane foam insulation, roofing and coating solutions will be made readily available to Canadian customers.

Effective from 1 October 2018, the Wittmann Group has merged its companies Wittmann Battenfeld GmbH & Co. KG in Meinerzhagen and Wittmann Robot Systeme GmbH in Nuremberg, Germany, into a single company.

The speciality chemicals distributor Safic-Alcan has signed an extended exclusive agreement with Arlanxeo for the distribution of Keltan EPDM in France, effective from 1 January 2019.

Cabot Corporation announced that it has acquired NSCC Carbon (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. from Nippon Steel Carbon Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Nippon Steel Chemical & Material Co., Ltd. The carbon black manufacturing facility in Pizhou, Jiangsu Province, China, was originally commissioned in 2015.

LyondellBasell on 10 October 2018 announced that a joint venture between PolyMirae Company Ltd (PMC) and SK Advanced (SKA) has selected LyondellBasell’s world leading polypropylene fifth generation Spheripol technology for a 400,000 t/y unit to be constructed in Ulsan, South Korea.

Covestro AG is tapping e-commerce on an experimental basis in China. The China market is the single largest contributor to Covestro's global sales. The company, formerly known as Bayer Material Science, expects to boost its total global sales via online channels to EUR 1 billion (USD 1.17 billion), by the end of 2019, said Markus Steilemann, its CEO. "We have great opportunities in terms of development here in China, particularly in e-commerce, because this is a market still very experimental, where customers love to try new things."

Saudi Aramco and Total signed on Monday (8 October 2018) a joint development agreement for a giant petrochemical complex in the Kingdom’s Jubail Industrial City. President and CEO of Saudi Aramco, Amin H. Nasser, and the CEO of Total, Jean Pouyanné, signed the agreement in Dhahran to build the world-class complex announced last April.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture are teaming up to establish a project that will focus on lifting the living standards of smallholder rubber farmers in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand.

The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry is planning to offer THB 3,000 compensation per rai to rubber growers who agree not to tap rubber latex in their plantations for three months.