April 1999

New technologies and design methods will play a large role in the design and construction of LNG projects

I recently turned into our Production Dept. the articles for our May supplement, Fieldbus Technology. It will be mailed to readers of Gulf Publishing Co.'s three magazines – Hydrocarbon Processin..

Mean-time-between and mean-time-to-failure (MTBF and MTTF) can differ for the same equipment. The differences are often attributable to quality of installation and grade of operation. This situation i..

The folks at PricewaterhouseCoopers have created a Web site that is useful to the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI), especially those running crude units and buying crude. The product is called Oi..

Lots of activity is occurring within the HPI. In March, several major announcements were released concerning ethylene manufacturing. At their March ethylene technology seminar, Kellogg Brown & Root (K..

Recently, I was in Birmingham, England, attending Maintec 99, the international maintenance conference and exhibition. One morning, I found myself running short of pounds sterling. Thus, I had either ..

Over time, many acronyms have been given to the organizational function to manage equipment availability performance. More recently, a new acronym has emerged: EAM. It stands for enterprise asset mana..

ABB Lummus Global, Bloomfield, New Jersey, and TARGOR have cooperatively agreed to promote and license TARGOR's Novolen polypropylene technology. Under the agreement, the Lummus technology division wi..

Alfa Laval, Richmond, Virginia, a world leading manufacturer of compact heat exchangers, has acquired Vicarb S.A., a French manufacturer and supplier of compact heat exchangers. The merger of the two ..

Algroup lonza to operate glycerin refinery A division of the Swiss-based algroup, algroup lonza, has made a substantial investment in the modernization of its glycerin refining operations at Paines..

Opportunities for investment in Mexico's energy sector were delineated by that country's Energy Minister, Luis Téllez. In an interview with the Mexican Investment Board, the minister cited "new a..

World ethylene capacity is expected to increase by 23.3 million tons (MMton) from 1997 to 2003, forecasts Chemical Market Associates, Inc. (CMAI). Construction of new steam crackers will occur in ever..

Representatives from the HPI recently met at two major organizations' annual events. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) held its Spring National Meeting in Houston, Texas, March 14-1..

The former Soviet Union (FSU) has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. The region also contains significant crude oil reserves. Recent declines in crude oil production appear to have leveled..

Production of plastic materials in Western Europe was about 40 million metric tons (MMton) in 1997. This represents about one-quarter of worldwide production and is on a par with output levels in the ..

A new report from the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation focuses on market size and share for the world's seven largest private, (pre-merger) major oil companies: Exxon, Mobil, BP, Amoco, Texaco, ..

Between 1985 and 1992, U.S. industrial consumption of natural gas increased 3.3%/yr – nearly twice the rate of competing fuels. A new report from the Gas Research Institute details hard-to-collec..

An MTBE-eating microbe is being field-tested by researchers at the University of California at Davis. The natural organism was discovered at a wastewater treatment facility. According to the Oxygenate..

The POSC/CAESAR project focuses on standardizing the technical data definitions for facilities and equipment associated with onshore and offshore oil and gas development facilities. There are close ti..

The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA) held its Annual Meeting in San Antonio from March 21–23. As I have written in the past, this is one of my favorite industry meetings to ..