Equipment
Digital: How digital tools improve access to device information
Welcome to the future! The plant runs fully automated; robots glide silently back and forth, ensuring an optimized process; and your maintenance technician—with a few keystrokes—can tell you exactly how each piece of equipment is running. The promise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has been delivered.
Cybersecurity visibility and resilience: Keys to protecting HSE/margins in operations
As digitalization accelerates in today’s downstream refining and petrochemical facilities, operators need to stay ahead of ever-growing cyber vulnerabilities in the operational technology (OT) layer—prime targets for threat actors—that may not be covered by traditional IT safeguards. Unfortunately, too often, that is not the case for a variety of reasons.
Optimal gas analysis decisions improve ethylene plant operation
One of the most common and important building blocks in the petrochemical industry is ethylene, constituting a huge and fast-growing worldwide industry. Ethylene is an intermediate chemical used to manufacture many commercial products—approximately 200 MMt will be produced in 2020.
Case study: Heat exchanger tube rupture and its impact on metal embrittlement
Process engineers strive to recover as much energy as is practically possible from the available process and utility streams within the constraint of the plant. To achieve this goal, traditional—and sometimes non-traditional—methods are utilized. In a steam cracker, light olefins are considered the highest-value products, and utilizing “cold energy,”
Editorial Comment: Processing a sustainable future
An emerging topic along the entire oil and gas value chain is the move toward <i>sustainability.</i> Each company has a somewhat different definition of what sustainability means to its operations.
Onsite
Innovations
Honeywell is developing a OneWireless™ IoT Module for the next generation of Cisco’s industrial access points, the Cisco Catalyst IW6300 Heavy Duty Series Access Point. The Honeywell and Cisco technologies will form the backbone of Honeywell’s OneWireless Network.
Construction
Equatorial Guinea plans to invest $1 B to build several energy projects, including the construction of two new refineries, each with a capacity of 30,000 bpd–40,000 bpd, as well as oil storage facilities, a methanol-to-gasoline plant and an LNG expansion project.
Business Trends: EPC 2030: Five vital characteristics that will define the EPC firm of tomorrow
The state of the global engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) industry can accurately be described as “challenging.” Operating in an environment of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous conditions, EPC firms are facing unsustainable levels of stress.
FCCU catalyst reformulations: Reducing risk and guaranteeing value with collaboration/testing
Hellenic Petroleum S.A.’s Aspropyrgos refinery is located near Athens, Greece. It has a total refining capacity of approximately 7.5 MMtpy and a Nelson complexity index of 9.7. The refinery was built in 1958 and has undergone several upgrades, including the installation of a fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU).
- U.S. EIA forecasts new export licensing requirements will reduce U.S. ethane exports 6/18
- Nigeria to export first gasoline cargo to Asia from Dangote refinery 6/18
- Indian refiners cancel palm oil orders for July-September as prices surge 6/18
- U.S. set to object to green jet fuel recommendation at UN aviation council 6/18
- Phoenix Contact introduces intrinsic safety versions of the MINI Analog Pro Ex conditioners for hazardous areas 6/18
- EIA: U.S. crude inventories fall by most in a year, fuel stocks build 6/18
