Environment & Safety Gas Processing/LNG Maintenance & Reliability Petrochemicals Process Control Process Optimization Project Management Refining

Americas

HP Impact: Natural gas vehicles could be gaining traction

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Thinnes, Billy

Natural gas vehicles could be gaining tractionA new report from PIRA Energy Group says that the sheer volume of US recoverable gas resources relative to expected demand suggests that benchmark Henry H..

HP Impact: Marginal increase forecast in North American lubricant market

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Thinnes, Billy

Marginal increase forecast in North American lubricant marketAlthough it is estimated that there will be a 3% increase in tonnage carried by private fleet operators in the US through 2016, this is exp..

HP Construction: North America

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Meche, Helen

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has a contract from Methanex Corp. to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for a methanol production facility in Louisiana. Officials estimate the c..

HP Construction: South America

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Meche, Helen

A subsidiary of Foster Wheeler AG’s Global Engineering and Construction Group has a contract from Petrobras for a world-scale grassroots gas-to-chemicals complex—Complexo Gás-Quími..

HP Reliability: Equipment life extension involves upgrades

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Bloch, Heinz P.

Every plant wants to get more service life from site machinery. Since about 1990, quite a number of start-up consulting companies have formed to advise clients on equipment life extension. These compa..

HP Integration Strategies: Recent trends shape the future of DCS

ARC Advisory Group: Young, B.

Several trends have already impacted the distributed control system (DCS) market and are likely to continue over the next few years. These include both product- and technology-related trends and gener..

HP Water Management: Consider software tools for water reuse projects

MarTech Systems, Inc.: Huchler, L. A.

The hydrocarbon processing industry needs reliable and economic sources of water for present and future operations. Ensuring a sustainable water supply requires a focused effort to evaluate the qualit..

Update hydrocracking reactor controls for improved reliability

Consultant: Kern, A.G.

The industry consultant believes auto-quench, excursion control and bed-outlet layers should join auto-depressure as industry-best practice for all hydrocrackers.

Use a systematized approach of good practices in pygas hydrogenation via APC

Axens: Bader, J.-M.  |  Rolland, G.

APC with inferential modeling was successfully applied to pygas hydrogenation units. The lengthening of the catalyst run length limits downtime for both the pygas unit and upstream units such as the steam cracker.

Why don’t we properly train control engineers?

Whitehouse Consulting: King, M. J.

While there are managers in the process industry that see training control engineers as a “no-brainer,” these are very much in the minority. They may send staff on courses covering configura..