October 2008

The technology is saving Sasol more than $400,000 per year

The benefits include automatic recovery from faults, improved safety and prevention of severe product contamination

Consider them for complex nonlinear processes

The new design solved the two-phase flow problem

The root cause was regenerator gas blower oversizing

A systematic approach estimates optimum conditions to prevent air ingress for flares

An empirical formula simplifies estimating cetane values for different diesel fuel specifications

This evaluation explores the most influencing parameters regarding catalyst selection for sulfur recovery units

Ten special 'features' are analyzed to assess whether these add-ons provide real value or if informed users (and vendors) would be better off focusing on core values

Saudi Aramco's Allan Kern has been a frequent contributor to HP in recent years on the subject of multivariable predictive control (MPC). For HP's 2008 process control and information systems report, ..

The early popularity of some biofuels in Europe has soured into a sense that they are wasteful of food resources. As long as biofuel investors continue to ignore how plants are grown on the farm, then..

A good instrumentation failure tracking system can provide many benefits; most are linked to saving money and to increasing plant performance. So, why isn't this common practice? Many companies in the..

Each day hydrocarbon processors perform hundreds of chemical analyses to ensure product quality, meet regulatory and safety standards, and, most importantly, minimize product quality giveaway. To keep..

Flue-gas analyzers for improved combustion efficiency Enhanced Rosemount Analytical X-STREAM oxygen analyzers are claimed to improve the efficiencies of large boilers and furnaces, and provide immed..

Rice University hosts the Rice Global E&C Forum People representing all facets of the engineering and construction business came together for a day..

Technip has an agreement with Premcor Refining Group, Inc., for an engineering, procurement, construction and management contract for part of the $2.4 billion expansion of the Valero refinery locate..

Franklin Oil and Gas plans to construct a gas-to-liquid processing plant capable of producing 20,000 bpd of diesel fuel, kerosene and other petroleum products in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The prov..

AB Maþeikiø Nafta has an agreement with Chevron Lummus Global for a new grassroots VGO hydroprocessing isocracking unit to be built in its refinery in Maþeikiai, Lithuania. An importan..

Chevron Lummus Global has contracts with Saudi Aramco and Total S.A. to provide process technology for two hydrocracker units, with a total capacity of 120,000 bpsd, for the planned 400,000-bpd refi..

Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries Inc. LLP has selected LyondellBasell Industries' polyethylene and polypropylene technologies for three new plants that will have a combined capacity of 1,300 KT o..

  Up-to-date flow technology information McCrometer's A–Z flowmeter literature CD showcases its applications and product-specification information in an easy-to-use format. U..

Tracking oil's geopolitical risks As the global energy market faces new challenges, Amy Myers Jaffe, with the James A. Baker III Institute for Publ..

The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) recently released its annual US Refining and Storage Capacity Report. As of January 1, 2008, there were 150 operable refineries in the US (excl..

HPI spending for equipment and materials is forecast to exceed $104.1 billion worldwide in 2009. This is $7 billion more than was forecast for 2008. All three budgets: capital, maintenance and operati..

China is a major trading partner for the EU and its biggest source of imports. Thus, more European companies are operating in the Chinese market. However, many are worried about intellectual property ..

A strong manufacturing sector with high demand for commodities and energy has permitted many companies to increase budgets for maintenance and capital expenditures. However, some remain cautious as e..

Despite the emerging biofuels market, the creation of a global biofuels industry is forecast to be "much more difficult to achieve than originally thought," according to findings of a recent Accenture..

Trends emerging now in the automotive industry have the potential to bring significant change to several areas of automotive engineering, says James D. Eddy, Automotive Industry Manager of Zeon Chemic..

A new decision-aid tool has been developed by a Construction Industry Institute (CII) research team to give capital project stakeholders a better means for evaluating specific items or project activit..

Revisiting canned motor pumps When we received an interesting letter relating to canned motor pumps, we had already sent Dennis Fegan's article in the August issue ("Canned motor pumps make important..

At a recent gathering of over 500 reliability professionals in Texas, we invited questions from the audience. I was asked what I thought of installing flexible piping (or connectors) on centrifugal pu..

This refiner installed a hybrid catalytic reforming unit to raise octane of the gasoline blending pool

The proposed bounding method significantly improves performance

The technology was applied to an ethylene oxide reactor