Texas Business reports: Pittsburgh, PA-based L.B. Foster Company completed the relocation of its threaded products water well group from Houston to a new facility in Magnolia, Texas.

Texas Business reports: DALLAS—New York’s Standard Motor Products Inc., an automotive replacement parts manufacturer and distributor acquired CompressorWorks, a temperature control company, for approximately $37.4 million.

Texas Business reports:  LONGVIEW—The Shaw Group Inc. won a contract to provide its proprietary technology and engineering services for a new Ultra Selective Conversion (USC) furnace for Eastman Chemical Company's ethylene plant in Longview.

Texas Business reports: AUSTIN, Texas—BAE Systems has completed construction of the company's new manufacturing center in Austin.

Waste Control Specialists employees dispose of low-level radioactive waste at a facility in Fernalt, Ohio. A new low-level radiation landfill run by WCS will soon open in Andrews County. WCS Photo.

In a sparsely populated corner of West Texas near the New Mexico border, a private company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build the nation’s newest radioactive waste disposal facility. 

Texas Business reports: CHARLOTTE, N.C.— Bonsal American, Inc., an Oldcastle company, acquired the TXI Package Products business of TXI Operations, LP, a subsidiary of Texas Industries, Inc., which is based in Dallas, Texas.

Texas Business reports:  THE WOODLANDS, Texas—CB&I won a contract valued at about US$300 million, by Williams Olefins LLC for a petrochemicals expansion project in Geismar, Louisiana.

Texas Business reports: PASADENA, California—Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. won a contract to provide Project Management Consulting (PMC) services for a new pipe rolling mill near Corpus Christi, Texas for Tianjin Pipe Corporation (TPCO).

Texas Business reports:  THE WOODLANDS, Texas—Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP will expand the Natural Gas Liquids  Fractionator Complex at its Sweeny Plant in Old Ocean, Texas.

Texas Business reports:  HOUSTON—Global NuTech, soon to be renamed Texas Gulf Energy Inc. formed a new wholly owned subsidiary named Texas Gulf Electrical & Instrumentation Inc.

Texas Business reports:  FORT WORTH—FWT LLC, a manufacturer in the design and fabrication of custom steel structures for the utility and telecommunications industry, plans to expand into Ohio through the purchase of a plant in the Village of Hicksville.

Texas Business reports:  THE WOODLANDS—Huntsman Corporation acquired EMA Kimya Sistemleri Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., a polyurethanes systems house in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Texas Business reports:  HOUSTON—Westlake Chemical Corporation is increasing the capacity of the previously announced chlor-alkali plant to be located at its vinyls manufacturing complex in Geismar, Louisiana.

Texas Business reports: HOUSTON—Kirby Corporation bought a coastwise tank barge fleet of Seaboats Inc. and affiliated companies consisting of three 80,000 barrel coastwise tank barge and tug units for $42.3 million in cash.

Texas Business reports:  DALLAS—More than $3.1 million in Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) funds have been granted to four organizations in EPA Region 6 to aid in diesel emissions reductions. The organizations are the Houston-Galveston Area Council, Railroad Research Foundation, Leonardo Academy and Port of Houston Authority. 

Texas Business reports:  PASADENA— Kuraray America Inc. announced the approval of a project to increase its  production capacity by more than 17 million pounds (8,000 tons) per year at a cost of $49 million.

Texas Business reports:  A Temple Texas company, Artco Bell, was bought as a package of school furniture companies by an Iowa firm.

Texas Business reports:  ABILENE— Lauren Engineers & Constructors finalized the purchase of property near Bynum, Montana which will be used as a modular construction facility.

Texas Business reports:  HOUSTON—Air Liquide Industrial U.S. LP broke ground this week on a new nitrogen liquefier at its air separation plant in Cleburne, Texas.

Texas Business reports:  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a Texas site has been added to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites: the Falcon Refinery in San Patricio County, Texas. The EPA also announced the US Oil Recovery site in Pasadena, Texas, has been proposed to the NPL.  Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

Texas Business reports: Texas City--Eastman Chemical Company completed the acquisition of Sterling Chemicals Inc., a single site North American petrochemical producer, for $100 million in cash.

Texas Business reports:  GRAPEVINE—Greenhunter Energy Inc., a diversified renewable energy company focused on water resource management in the unconventional oil and shale resource plays, announced its wholly owned subsidiary, GreenHunter Water, has executed a definitive agreement to acquire approximately 99 mineral acres and 84 surface acres located in West Virginia where it will develop a commercial water service facility.

Texas Business reports:  M&G Group, an Italian-based PET resin manufacturer, has chosen to locate its third North American plant in Corpus Christi.

Texas Business reports:  DALLAS—Energy Transfer Partners  LP and Regency Energy Partners LP  announced that Lone Star NGL LLC will construct an approximately 530-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that extends from Winkler County in west Texas to the Jackson County processing plant in Jackson County, Texas.

Texas Business reports:  HOUSTON—Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, the world's largest industrial auctioneer, will conduct a multi-million dollar unreserved public auction at the company's permanent auction site in Houston, Texas on Wednesday and Thursday, June 22 - 23, 2011.

Texas Business reports:  The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality today approved penalties totaling $1,854,902 against 135 regulated entities for violations of state environmental regulations.

Texas Business reports:  Irving—Commercial Metals Company, headquartered in Irving, completed the acquisition of G.A.M. Steel Pty. Ltd. (G.A.M.), a leading distributor and processor of steel long products and plate based in Melbourne, Australia.

 Texas Business reports:  Houston—The EPA has provided a grant for the San Jacinto River, a  river considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be one of the most polluted water-ways in Texas and contains a number of pollutants in high concentrations that are persistent in the water and riverbed.

Texas Business reports: Owens Corning, the leading global producer of glass fiber reinforcements for composite systems, announced today at the 2011 SAE Noise and Vibration Conference that it is now producing preformed acoustic inserts for automotive mufflers at its glass reinforcements plant in Amarillo, Texas.

GE Transportation’s Evolution Series locomotive

Texas Business reports:  An investment in an old industry for new technology is expected to create several hundred jobs in Fort Worth. Texas will invest $4.2 million through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) in GE Transportation to create a locomotive manufacturing facility in Fort Worth.

Texas Business reports:  Dallas—Energy Transfer Partners L.P. and Regency Energy Partners LP  announced that Lone Star NGL LLC, the joint venture that acquired the midstream assets of Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy, will construct a 100,000-barrel per day natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation facility at Mont Belvieu, Texas.

Texas Business reports:  Houston’s Waste Management Inc.  is developing a new organics facility in Apopka, Florida.

Texas Business reports:  Texas is investing $550,000 through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) in Coll Materials Exchange for the company's expansion into Waco.

BP's troubled Texas City refinery as well as another refinery operated by Valero Energy Corporation have reportedly released more than 150,000 pounds of pollutants into the air after power troubles forced emergency shutdowns at several refineries in the area. That figure is expected to grow as the companies restart their equipment and file more emissions reports with regulators.

Texas Business reports:  Carrollton—Universal Power Group Inc., a Texas-based distributor and supplier of batteries and related power accessories, acquired for $3.3 million the assets and business of Progressive Technologies Inc. (PTI), a North Carolina-based battery pack manufacturer specializing in lithium-ion battery packs.

Texas Business reports:  Carrollton’s Varel International and NewTech Services (NTS) announce the creation of a 50-50 joint venture company focused on manufacturing, assembling, servicing and sales of polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) oil and gas drill bits for the Russian CIS market and beyond.

Texas Business reports:  Houston’s KBR won an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by KiOR Inc. (KiOR) to build what is claimed to be first-of-its-kind biomass-to-renewable crude facility to be located in Columbus, Mississippi.

Copano Energy

 Texas Business reports:  Houston—Copano Energy LLC, plans to expand processing facilities at its Houston Central complex, located in Colorado County, Texas, in response to producer demand in the rapidly developing Eagle Ford Shale play. 

Texas Business reports:  Dallas—Cotton Creek Capital and its co-investors completed the acquisition of Fort Worth-based Graco Supply & Integrated Services.

Texas Business reports:  An Illinois company recently opened its fourth major investment in six years in Waco.

Texas Business: Houston—Genesis Energy L.P. entered into several agreements and commenced work to expand its crude oil pipeline and terminaling capabilities in the upper Texas coast and to expand its refinery services operating footprint with a new sour gas processing facility.

 Texas Business reports:  Texas is investing $194,000 through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) in 3M Co. for the expansion of their manufacturing facility in Angleton.

Texas Business reports: The state agency on environomental regulation fined Chevron Phillips more than $180,000 for air violations.

Texas Business reports:  Marshall—Norit Americas Inc. announced that a three-person independent arbitration panel has issued its decision in the binding arbitration with ADA-ES, Inc. and certain of its affiliates, as well as former Norit employees John Rectenwald and Steve Young.

Texas Business reports:  Houston—Westlake Chemical Corporation announced an expansion program to include increasing the ethane-based ethylene capacity at Lake Charles, Louisiana and the evaluation of expansion options and the upgrade of ethylene production facilities at Calvert City, Kentucky in order to capitalize on new low cost ethane and other “light” feedstocks being developed in North America.

RT Kalmar

Texas Business reports:  A Cibolo firm won a $7 million contract for forklifts, parts and service.

Texas Business reports:  Lucite International Inc.  plans to start production of methacrylic acid (MAA) at its Beaumont facility. 

Arlon Engineered Coated Products

Texas Business reports:  A Massachusetts firm bought the assets of a San Antonio engineered products company.

Texas Business reports:  Houston-based Stewart & Stevenson LLC acquired EMDSI - Hunt Power LLC in an all cash transaction from ITOCHU of Japan.

Shafter Silver Mine In Presidio County

Texas Business reports:  After the Texas Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market, Silver Rule 7 and Silver Thursday in 1979, serious interest in that commodity lagged for three decades.

But a Canadian company has invested in a 130-year-old Texas silver mine. Yes, that’s right. A Texas silver mine.

The first phase of the Miho site was completed in 1980.

Texas Business reports: After a preliminary assessment, Texas Instruments said its manufacturing site in Miho, Japan, about 40 miles northwest of Tokyo, suffered substantial damage during last Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake. 

Texas Business reports:  Toshiba International Corporation will expand manufacturing capacity at its plant in Houston  for production of high-performance drive motors for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs).

Texas Business reports: Houston—Trico Marine Services Inc. plans to auction towing and suppy vessels, officials announced.

Texas Business reports:  Manitex International Inc., a provider of engineered lifting solutions including boom truck cranes, rough terrain forklifts, container handling equipment and special mission oriented vehicles, announced that Manitex, Inc., its Georgetown, Texas-based boom truck subsidiary, received orders totaling over $11.5 million.

Texas Business reports:  Helotes—The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Venetian Marble & Granite in Helotes with 10 serious safety and health violations after an inspection found that workers were exposed to unsafe levels of crystalline silica particles, the agency announced in a formal statement.

Texas Business reports:  The Shell oil and chemical refinery in Deer Park oil refinery reported a benzene release to the National Response Center.

Texas Business reports:  Two chemical firms announced they would they plan to build the nation’s largest hydrogen choloride plant in Freeport to supply the burgeoning electronic industry.

 Texas Business reports: Lucite International, Inc. announced today that it will re-start the production of methyl methacrylate (MMA) at its Beaumont facility in the first quarter of 2011.

TexasBusiness.com reports:  Production of the Tacoma pickup truck began last month   at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas  Inc.    The $100 million investment boosts total investment to $1.4 billion.  

TexasBusiness.com reports:  Ryerson Inc., a leading distributor and processor of metals in North America, announced today that it has acquired SFI-Gray Steel Inc. a steel plate processor based in Houston, Texas. Terms of the transaction were not announced.  

Lorain, Ohio— Tucked away on East 21st Street, just west of Lorain’s sprawling steel mill, is a distributor shipping steel pipe to most of the Midwest and eastern United States, reports the Morning-Journal.