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Management

Without reliability, there can be no safety

Oil Industry Safety Directorate: Dutta, H.

Reliability and safety are complimentary concepts. For instance, unless process reliability at a plant is extraordinary, safety cannot be assured. Achieving the highest level of safety at a processing..

HP Automation Strategies: Control on the wire(less)

ARC Advisory Group: Gupta, M. S.

Since the industrial revolution, process/industrial control had relied on tightly coupled systems to transmit control signals. Industrial plants have used “modern” control via wired electron..

HP Project Management: German refinery successfully modernizes safety system

Heide Refinery-Klesch Group: Romahn, T.
HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH: Cisler, M.

In September 2014, the Heide refinery in Germany used two weeks of planned downtime at its pyrolysis plant to migrate to new safety systems. The new system emphasized high plant/equipment availability..

HP Global: State of the US petrochemical/chemical industry

American Chemistry Council: Swift, T. K.

After a promising start, the global economy faltered in 2014 with heightened geopolitical uncertainty; recessions in Brazil, Japan and many European nations; and slowdowns in China, the Euro Area and ..

HP Petrochemicals: Global PE demand growth to drive downstream expansions

IHS Markit: Asaro, M.

According to IHS Chemical, global demand for polyethylene (PE) is expected to increase by more than 25% during the next five years, from approximately 85 million metric tons (metric MMt) in 2014, to m..

HP People

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) announced that Brendan Williams has been promoted to executive vice president, effective Jan. 1, 2015. Mr. Williams joined AFPM in 2007 as director of government relations and advanced to become senior vice president of advocacy in 2013.

Improve execution of capital projects with advanced technologies

Bechtel Corp.: Avidan, A. A.

The E&C industry is now poised for a major leap forward in utilizing advancements in information technologies and, thus, enabling itself to greatly boost project performance.

Replan: Modernizing Brazil’s largest crude oil refinery

Petrobras: Perissé, J. B.

The project included installing two hydrodesulfurization (HDS) units for the cracked naphtha produced by two catalytic cracking units, a coker naphtha hydrotreating (HDT) unit, and a catalytic reforming unit.

3D laser scanning impacts asset lifecycle management

LFM Software Ltd.: Farrow, G.

Few technologies have leaped from research lab to everyday use quite as rapidly as 3D laser scanning. Only a few years ago, this technology was a prototype method that captured fuzzy images of plant e..

Mexico’s major grassroots effort: Ethylene XXI project

Contributing Writer: Nogarin, M.

The federal government, through Pemex Gas and Petroquímica Básica, using the law that regulates Mexican oil, decided to promote private investment to build a new major petrochemical complex called Ethylene XXI.