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

Europe

Alfa Laval to supply heat exchangers at AkzoNobel caustic soda plant

Alfa Laval’s compact heat exchangers will be used for concentrating caustic soda, an important ingredient in the petrochemical industry. The compact heat exchangers will re-use heat from different steps of the evaporation process, thereby maximizing the energy efficiency and minimizing the energy use.

Essar Group looks to sell Stanlow refinery in UK

Essar is hoping to gain at least $500 million from the sale, the report says. However, other UK plants recently put up for sale, such as the Petroplus Coryton refinery, have failed to find buyers.

Europe’s petrochemical group launches new brand

The renaming reflects the current and future direction of this group. Petrochemicals Europe continues to operate under the Cefic umbrella and the Brussels-based European Chemical Industry Council.

A Schulman to buy Ferro specialty plastics assets

The specialty plastics assets included in the pending transaction achieved sales of $154 million in 2013, with approximately two-thirds of these revenues generated in the US.

Michell Instruments celebrates 40-year anniversary

Established in 1974 in Cambridge, UK, the company started off in a small building with just a few employees but now has three manufacturing locations and several offices in 10 countries.

Use crowdsourcing to boost process simulation

Schneider Electric: Brown, S.

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

Wieland-Werke AG: Lang, T.  |  El-Hajal, J.
Technip: Provost, J.

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

Nalco Champion: Hancock, J. M.
SABIC Technology & Innovation: Van Zijl, A. W.  |  Robson, I.  |  Vachon, J.  |  Hashmi, A.

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

Phillips 66: Mickity, D.

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 ..

Targeted liquid injection improves shed deck performance

Valero Benicia Refinery: Riley, C.  |  Wicklow, C.
Valero Energy Corp.: Hanson, D.  |  Brown Burns, J.

This case study shows how the installation of an unique piping and lance design achieved targeted liquid injection, quenched vapor hot zones and reduced resid entrainment into the heavy coker gasoil product.