November 1999

Refiners should consider partial-conversion hydrocracking techniques to make 'clean fuels,' increase product yields and improve refinery margins

Using Ethernet networks for process control applications has generated a lot of controversy. Ethernet's low cost, and the fact that it is the communications medium of the Internet, has made it popular..

Next to mechanical seals, rolling element bearings are the components that fail most frequently in centrifugal pumps. There are many reasons for these failures. Previous columns have highlighted remed..

Now here is a fine site for the whole oil and gas industry! Somebody finally pulled it all together in one place for us. The people at Norwegian Energy (UK) Ltd. have put together quite a collection o..

U.S. refiners are facing a hostile environment. Great animosity is directed toward their final product – gasoline. Especially in California, consumers are distressed with potential health effects..

Almost all petrochemical plants and refineries use water as a utility for heating, cooling or purifying the process stream. The plant often assumes that the water quality is adequate. A lack of attent..

As we sang at Woodstock, "It's a lesson too late for the learning, made of sand, made of sand..." (If you don't know this song or have never heard of Woodstock, ask your parents or the old, white-hair..

AUMA Actuators, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a manufacturer of electric valve actuators for water, power generation, refinery and process industries, has acquired the electric actuator division of..

Bray Int'l., Houston, Texas, a worldwide leader and innovator in process control automation, has purchased Flow-Tek, Inc., Columbia, South Carolina. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Flow..

BP Amoco, BASF commission new purification unit BP Amoco and BASF have commissioned a new acetronitrile purification unit at the BASF nylon intermediates facility at Seals Sands, UK. The 9-Mtpy-cap..

Hydrocarbon Processing welcomes Heinz P. Bloch as our new Reliability/ Equipment editor. Formerly a Contributing Editor who wrote the monthly "HP In Reliability" column, Mr. Bloch will continue to wr..

Methanol is facing some unusual challenges; a recent outlook from DeWitt & Co. reflects this. Methanol's supply/ demand future will be heavily influenced by the outcome of the MTBE debate in the U.S. ..

The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) reports that its members are responsible for contributing 99% of the reported emissions reductions from the producer sector. And they are exceeding EPA's redu..

The Qatargas Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Plant Project is the winner of the 1999 Project Management Institute (PMI) International Project of the Year Award. The Qatargas LNG Plant Project is Qatar's f..

Robust growth in U.S. industrial production over the next 15 years is expected to trigger a 25% increase in industrial energy consumption by 2015, according to a Gas Research Institute (GRI) study. ..

According to a new analysis by Probe Economics, Inc., recent increases in petrochemicals and polymers prices can be attributed partly to a recovery in Asia, but mostly to the rising cost of energy and..

This fall's engineering and construction contracting (ECC) conference, sponsored by AIChE and numerous HPI companies, provided a two-day forum for discussing various contracting strategies. Keynote sp..

New insight about calculating the risk to workers in toxic cleanup sites, as compared to risk to nearby residents, is provided by a comprehensive study. The research, "Hazards for Nearby Residents and..

Gilliland plot revisited After reading "Gilliland plot revisited," by F. A. Rusche, as published on p. 79 in the February 1999 issue of Hydrocarbon Processing, I have replied with the following c..

On May 13, 1999, EPA issued the Tier 2/gasoline sulfur proposal, which seeks to reduce vehicle emissions in the U.S. by requiring steep reductions in gasoline sulfur levels to 30 parts per million (pp..