Asia/Pacific
Afton Chemical breaks ground on new Singapore chemical additives plant
Designed and located to support the growth of the Asia-Pacific and Middle East markets, the plant will start to produce components in January 2016 to support the next generation of additive solutions.
Clariant to build catalyst R&D center in Shanghai
The R&D center is expected to begin operation by 2015 with the goal of developing catalytic solutions tailored to Chinese market requirements and enhancing technical service support to local customers.
Honeywell to train refinery technicians in Vietnam
Honeywell will be responsible for helping to prepare the workforce for the refinery's 2017 start-up as well as the ongoing operational and business readiness of the facility.
INEOS licenses technology for new Turkmenistan petrochemical plant
The complex, which will be operated by Turkmengas, will include a 386,000 tpy line of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) using Innovene S technology alongside a 50,000 tpy black compounding line.
Use crowdsourcing to boost process simulation
There are many ways to enhance the user experience of next-generation simulators by borrowing concepts from crowdsourcing, data mining and related fields.
Improve performance of exchangers in quench-water services
Dual-enhanced (DE) tubes are widely used in shell-and-tube heat exchangers (HEXs) in a range of industries. They have become a standard in multiple clean services for the hydrocarbon processing indust..
A chemist’s perspective on organic fouling in ethylene operations
Since organic fouling cannot be completely eliminated, ethylene producers must use operational, chemical and mechanical methods to minimize heat transfer losses and equipment downtime.
Automate furnace controls to improve safety and energy efficiency
Furnace firing is the biggest single operating expense in any refinery. Consider a medium-size refinery (250,000 bpd) that consumes 2,000 MMBtu/h. At a cost of $5/MMBtu, that’s $87.6 MM/yr being ..
Use online conditioning to monitor electric motors
Quality and health assessments of motor insulation are important aspects during the manufacturing, as well as the operation, of electrical motors. Today, there are several offline insulation quality a..
Russian straight-run fuel oil supply collapse complicates Gulf Coast feedstock choices
In the next couple of years, collapsing Russian supply of straight-run fuel oil (SRFO) will undermine foreign supply of feedstock to the US Gulf Coast.

- CNOOC completes construction on $2.9-B, 1.8-MMtpy integrated complex in east China 8/22
- bp's Whiting refinery (U.S.) continues to flare days after severe thunderstorm 8/22
- Bachmann introduces latest version M-Target for Simulink 8/22
- U.S. to rule on biofuel waivers, but big oil refiners may need to wait 8/22
- Chinese independent refiner Hongrun buys Canadian, Brazilian crude 8/22
- Ukrainian attack suspends Russian oil flows to Hungary, Slovakia 8/22