June 1998

Will the refining industry continue to solve complicated regulatory, technological and financial challenges?

Use these guidelines to ensure a successful project

Applying operational excellence and optimization to control in the process industries will continue to provide significant economic benefits to business. However, optimization and operational excellen..

Typical payouts are one to three months

Source reduction techniques dramatically reduce hydrocarbons lost to sewer system

Discover the characteristics of long-term successful projects and how to help ensure a system's profitability

New processing techniques reduce raw material consumption for this polyester precursor

Most of the important factors do not involve optimizer mechanics

In the July 1997 "H P In Control" column, I raised the question, "Does the HPI do its CIM business right?" That was followed with a letter to the editor in Jan. '98 on "Decision-making and modeling in..

Last month, we looked at realistic criteria to determine true value when purchasing an "high-efficiency" electric motor. High-efficiency motors must meet the following criteria to comply with the DOE ..

In my day job, I search the Internet for information on companies in the oil, gas and chemical industries. Recently, I came across another good U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Office of Enforcem..

Politicians and government workers and are notoriously out of touch with industry needs. Especially government workers; at least politicians have to have some feeling for their constituents' needs. On..

After a busy first half of 1997, transactions in the refining sector seemed to slow somewhat – virtually no deals were made after my June 1997 column on refining consolidation. This proved to be ..

The May column introduced availability-based business performance simulation as the critical first step to reliability and maintenance improvement programs. This computer-based software is vital becau..

Fast spectrometer detects solvents What is claimed to be the world's fastest simultaneous inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer (ICP-AES) has been developed by Varian Analytical I..

Aspen Technology, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, a leading provider of Smart Manufacturing software and services for the process industries, and Intergraph Corp., a leader in software for detailed pl..

Amcec, Inc., Lisle, Illinois has formed an exclusive world-wide license agreement with Texaco Development Corp. to market Texaco patented closed-loop nitrogen stripping and adsorption processes. Ma..

Bearings resist heat and wear Made from a new and patented material, WearComp bushings and bearings are being used to extend drill time in the well and maintain production equilibrium in downstream..

QNP awards Krupp Uhde ammonium nitrate contract The Queensland Nitrates Pty. Limited (QNP) – the main shareholders of which are Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific Limited and Wesfarmers CSBP Limited in N..

Valve sizing program Groth Corp. has released the third version of its API pressure/ vacuum relief valve program on a floppy disk format for Windows. The enhanced update has been renamed GROTH CAL-..

China's rapid economic growth has outpaced its ability to produce sufficient quantities of basic petrochemicals and derivatives. This despite its efforts in developing its HPI, says a new study from S..

Under the EC Air Quality Framework Directive, Daughter Directives are being prepared for several pollutants. The limit under discussion will apply to PM10 (particulate with an aerodynamic diameter les..

The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) has updated its forecast of U.S. industry trends from 1997 to 2010. A summary of some of its recent conclusions: Total U.S. natural gas de..

Many energy companies have recently focused on sustaining competitiveness through improving operational effectiveness and cutting costs. According to a study by Arthur D. Little, in this process, "sen..

The Product Stewardship Code under the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) Responsible Care commits member companies to incorporate health, safety and environmental (HSE) protection into all stag..

Approaching the 21st century, the role of engineering contractors is "changing dramatically," according to data from Automation Research Corp. (ARC). Rather than just competing on price and specializi..

With so much attention focused on utilizing energy efficiency technologies to reduce CO2 emissions, "the timing is right to begin promoting insulation as a technology," says William Piton, executive v..

Polypropylene (PP) resins represent the fastest-growing commodity thermoplastic resin in the world and are now surpassed only by polyethylenes and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in total volume of productio..

In a tight labor market, information technology (IT) is overwhelmingly cited as "increasing productivity," according to a survey of human resources executives by Ernst & Young. "Clearly technolog..

Boiler circulation calculations We would like to add some remarks to the article, "Boiler circulation calculations," January 1998, p. 101, by V. Ganapathy. On page 104 of the article, Mr. Gana..

At Hydrocarbon Processing's Second Optimization Conference, M. W. Kellogg's Dr. Eric Moorehead discussed process optimization. While his remarks highlighted where we've been, he focused – more ..