February 2024

The refinery industry is one of the biggest industries worldwide. According to Statista, the global oil refinery capacity tipped 100 MMbpd in 2022. This capacity reflects nearly a twofold increase since 1970.

From large petrochemical plants to smaller-scale specialty chemical operations, digital transformation is a significant technology and operational improvement trend throughout the global chemical industry.

Part 1 of this article, “The process control journey: Primary process control—Part 1” appeared in the August issue of Hydrocarbon Processing and discussed the performance and stability of complex-wide primary (PID) control.

Whether a refinery process involves the creation of fuels from crude oil or the production of biogas, process analysis can help to address the many challenges involved in operations.

Oil and gas companies must focus on building robust industrial cybersecurity programs to prevent and respond to the next attack.

Plastic waste is a worldwide challenge. To reduce its carbon dioxide (CO₂) footprint, the plastics industry is striving to increase circularity by using plastic pyrolysis oils (pyoils) from waste plastics as steam cracker feedstock.

In the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI), if preventive maintenance is being performed and does not result in some insight related to the performance of the equipment or system, then that preventive maintenance is either not required or is being incorrectly directed.

As organizations increasingly prioritize resource optimization, performance and sustainability, executing a successful shutdown (SD) has become more challenging.

Process operating facilities typically process large inventories of gas and volatile hydrocarbon liquids at high pressures, which have the potential of posing major hazards during emergency incidents—such as fire, loss of containment or operating excursion.

Imagine experiencing a major industrial catastrophe where multitudes of alarms are triggered, creating chaos and confusion about which alarm responses should take priority and what those responses should be, while simultaneously ensuring employee safety and protecting valuable business assets.

Industrial process manufacturers and refiners are facing a storm of disruptive challenges. First and foremost, calls to mitigate climate change have taken a central position and must be prioritized, driving the decarbonization efforts of industrial and manufacturing processes.

Many companies around the world and across the size spectrum have committed to aggressive carbon-neutral targets and are now looking to their production sites for practical plans on how to achieve these goals.

Side entry mixers, or jet mixers, are commonly used to achieve mixing in storage tanks and reactors. Impellers are another conventional device used for mixing in industry, but they are expensive for large storage tanks and underground tanks, so jet mixers have proven to be a better alternative.

Large volumes of flammable hydrocarbons are stored inside different storage tanks in gas, oil and petrochemical plants. In addition to maximizing profitability, the optimum design of process units and storage facilities must consider safety concerns to avoid catastrophic accidents.

Throughout the history of the modern refining and petrochemicals industries, asset owners, project developers, and equipment and service companies have devoted countless expenditures in the research and development of new technologies.

<i>Hydrocarbon Processing</i> had the opportunity to speak with Hiroshi Tanoguchi, Vice President and Head of the Yokogawa Products Headquarters, Yokogawa Electric Corp., about the company’s autonomous control artificial intelligence (AI), how this was applied in a project with ENEOS Materials, and how safety is ensured in plant operations.

Gulf Energy Information’s Global Energy Infrastructure (GEI) database is tracking more than 1,000 active projects in the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI).

SGH Engineering Mechanics & Infrastructure group welcomes senior leaders