May 1999

Methodology positively impacts the bottom line by minimizing front-end heat-tracing costs

Potential benefits of fieldbus have been touted for many years, but products have only recently become available. We have always believed that once several suppliers offered fieldbus products, the t..

Devicebuses and sensorbuses complete the architecture

Reduced design, installation and startup costs provided significant benefits

ARCO estimates savings of $621,000 per drill site

The technology simplifies field-level communications and provides new functionality

Use these guidelines to set up an experimental Foundation fieldbus system

Similar conventional and fieldbus installations are compared

The technology provided 3% capital savings, as well as ongoing engineering and maintenance benefits

This fieldbus organization provides many services and benefits

In spite of remarkable advances in control systems, multivariable control algorithms, intelligent field devices, process modeling techniques, information system integration and user experience,1 quant..

Failure data are used to build simple log-log plots for predicting future failures and identifying if failure trends are improving or deteriorating. On the Crow/ AMSAA plot (Fig. 1), stable processes ..

Primarily Petroliana (http://www.oldgas.com/) is a site you won't normally stumble across. It is a site to visit that brings back memories of the oil industry's golden days. You can buy memorabilia li..

Some amazing developments are unraveling in California. To a great surprise, California Gov. Gray Davis has banned MTBE usage in gasoline. After holding public hearings concerning the University of Ca..

In process plants – as opposed to personal relationships – it is energy that makes the world go round. Energy makes pumps whizz, furnaces roar, and with a little help from catalysis, molecul..

As this issue of HP hits the "newsstands" (i.e., your desk), U.S. refiners are gearing up their operations for the summer driving season. This year, it officially starts after May 31. This season diff..

Brackett Green USA, Inc., Houston, Texas, and sister company Geiger GmbH have formed a joint venture company with Water Services of America (WSA ) to create BG-WSA, Inc. The new firm brings together t..

Balcke-Dürr Energietechnik GmbH, Ratingen, Germany, has acquired GEA Wärme- und Umwelttechnik GmbH (GWU), Herne, Germany, subject to approval by the cartel authorities. The new headquarters ..

EMS-INVENTA AG awarded contracts from China EMS-INVENTA AG, the Swiss engineering company – which is mainly active in the field of performance polymers, fine chemicals and engineering, has bee..

After trending downward for a year and a half, U.S. retail gasoline prices turned upward during March and early April as world crude oil prices firmed, according to API and EIA statistics. Increases i..

The economic supply/ demand forecast varies for different HPI market segments. Recent presentations at the annual DeWitt & Co. Petrochemical Review conference, March 23–25, in Houston, Texas, cov..

The worldwide outlook for key industry segments was addressed at CMAI's 14th annual conference. This year's meeting, March 24–25, in Houston, Texas, featured 34 papers, which are available from C..

"Why don't we hear more about industry success stories?" So asked a participant from an EPC firm during an industry Q&A session that I recently attended. In this time of increasing government regulati..

Fig. 2. System management is carried out over a network with ..