Construction
Good distributor design for high-velocity feed debottlenecks a crude preflash tower
Bazan Group’s crude unit No. 3—not designed by any of the authors’ companies—was bottlenecked by the preflash tower.
Industry Perspectives: Will capital investments increase in 2021 and beyond?
Over the past several years, the world witnessed a significant increase in downstream capacity growth in all sectors of the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI). However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant decline in demand for transportation fuels and certain petrochemical value chains.
Editorial Comment: Maintenance and reliability—A cornerstone of safe and efficient plant operation
Refineries and petrochemical plants are comprised of a series of crucial processes to produce transportation fuels, products and chemicals demanded by the global market. These processes consist of capital-intensive units that must be maintained to provide reliable performance. Failure to adequately maintain these assets can have a detrimental effect to not only operations and profit, but also to worker safety.
Editorial Comment
Over the past several decades, the hydrocarbon processing industry has invested heavily in new processing units to produce low-sulfur and ultra-low-sulfur (ULS) transportation fuels.
Global Project Data
According to Gulf Energy Information’s Global Energy Infrastructure database, new capital project investments have increased each month since November 2020.
Design considerations when flaring ethylene oxide
The flaring of gases released from normal process vents and safety valve discharges following an overpressure scenario is widely practiced in refineries, petrochemical and chemical plants.
Challenges and pitfalls in brownfield EPC projects
Job requirements and scope are well defined in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts because they are designed and engineered from scratch.
Leveraging digital technologies to create the smart renewable diesel facility
Many companies are modifying existing crude refineries or building grassroots renewable diesel facilities to produce drop-in, green renewable diesel from a variety of agriculturally derived triglyceride feedstocks.
Reducing acid consumption: Maximizing sulfuric acid alkylation unit profitability
Alkylation is a process used to produce highly branched isoparaffins from the reaction of lighter olefins and isobutane in the presence of sulfuric acid as a catalyst.
Converting a petroleum diesel refinery for renewable diesel
As refiners consider renewable, low-carbon alternatives, renewable diesel—refined from agricultural products using petroleum refinery processes—is gaining traction.
- Hanwha Ocean signs strategic MoU with Kanata Clean Power for proposed $15.7-B, 12-MMtpy FLNG project in Canada 6/18
- Burckhardt Compression secures milestone order for first industrial scale liquefied CO₂ carrier supporting Northern Lights CCS project 6/18
- Dynelectro dispatches 250-kW electrolyzer unit to Syntholene’s Iceland eSAF project 6/18
- EIA: U.S. crude inventories decline for tenth week to over 40-yr low 6/18
- Australia opens first carbon refinery, making new products from captured CO2 6/18
- ABB expands non-invasive sensing portfolio to advance simpler, safer temperature measurement 6/18

