Europe
Total inks new labor agreement with global union
A committee made up of members from Total and IndustriALL will meet annually to ensure that the agreement has been implemented and to identify and promote best practices.
Alfa Laval to close Tranter welded heat exchangers complex in Germany
The intention is to close the site in Artern, Germany, by July 31 2015, while consolidating the heat exchangers business with another site in Germany. The change will affect about 70 employees.
Hyperion, RSI launch new company for operator training simulations
HyperionRSI Simulation, a company jointly owned by Hyperion Systems Engineering and RSI, will offer simulation solutions based on the IndissPlus simulation technology.
Indorama buys new Polyplex PET plant in Turkey
Following the acquisition of the 130,000-tpy Artenius Turkpet plant (now renamed Indorama Ventures Adana PET) in the second quarter of 2014, the company will have a combined capacity of 382,000 tons, making IVL the top domestic PET producer in Turkey and the Southeast Europe region.
Jacobs to upgrade PTA plants for BP in Belgium
BP’s Geel site is a major producer of purified terephthalic acid and paraxylene, used in the manufacture of polyesters. The goal is to optimize operational performance of the BP Geel facilities.
Maximize LPG recovery from fuel gas using a dividing wall column
Refiners are challenged to recover LPG from mixed fuel gas streams due to the difficulty of separating the lighter components from bulk gas. To maintain profitability, it is essential to direct all of the crude oil components to the optimum disposition. This practice is becoming more significant due to increasing LPG demand in some countries and the supply of lighter crudes in countries such as the US.
Shale gas drives new opportunities for US downstream
This shift to lighter feeds for the SC will reduce the future availability of other petrochemical feedstocks—in particular, propylene.
Optimize amine sweetening with an optical O2 analyzer
After extraction, raw natural gas must go through processing before it is suitable for industrial, commercial and residential usage. The first stage of gas processing is known as “sweetening,..
DCS migration: Lessons learned
In 2005, TOTAL’s Port Arthur refinery (PAR), like many present-day refining and petrochemical facilities, found itself with an obsolete, at-capacity distributed control system (DCS). As shown in ..
Avoid counterproductive project management practices
For many years, reliability-focused engineers have observed flawed procurement processes for mechanical equipment. Many requirements are supposedly aimed at the lowest possible lifecycle cost; however..

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