Americas
Address competency gaps in console operations
Among the professional, trade and administrative personnel required to operate a refinery or petrochemical facility—managers, engineers, electricians, pipefitters, machinists, accountants, admini..
Consider a systematic approach for safety monitoring
Any facility dealing with bulk hydrocarbons must monitor safety conditions at all times. A leak of flammable or toxic material can occur at any time, and explosion is an ever-present threat when combu..
Case history: Quantifying the benefits of alarm management
By using timely alarms that lead an operator to corrective actions, the goals are to improve plant safety, to increase efficiency and to reduce environmental constraint limit violations.
Protect processing plants against jet fires
The impact of jet fires on process equipment is critical, and it is important to examine possible design considerations that can mitigate many of the jet fire consequences.
Recommended guidelines can help prevent fires caused by static electricity
For any person working in the oil and gas industry who is responsible for the safety of employees, colleagues, plant equipment and property, one of the most potentially confusing aspects in providing ..
Mitigate fouling in crude unit overhead—Part 2
Up to 50% of the refinery’s entire corrosion expense may occur in the crude unit. The root causes of the fouling and corrosion issues are often linked to the basic unit configuration choices, as ..
Improve solvent recovery in wax production
The solvent-recovery section of the deoiling unit for wax production consumes substantial energy. In this study, the effects of operating conditions (pressure), energy consumption and cost, and proces..
Update temperature control for a Claus unit with neural networks
The Natref oil refinery in Sasolburg, South Africa, had experienced refractory problems in the sulfur recovery unit’s (SRU’s) combustion chamber since startup (Fig. 1). Even though the SRU w..
HP Reliability: Maintain proficiency in root-cause-failure analysis
Earlier in the year, the author attended a series of client and organizers’ presentations at the 2013 TapRooT Summit in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. TapRooT is a structured failure analysis and trouble..
HP Integration Strategies: Operational integrity management at Statoil
Asset-intensive industries continue to suffer from unplanned downtime, failure to meet planned production rates, and too many safety and environmental incidents. Until companies can manage and mitigat..
- KT-Kinetics Technology, NEXTCHEM awarded contracts for Petronas hydrogen unit 1/14
- Chinese, Indian refiners seek new supplies as US sanctions tighten grip on Russian oil 1/14
- Clariant to fight 1.4-B euro ethylene lawsuit from BASF 1/14
- Poland's Orlen plans to invest up to nearly $92 B by 2035 1/14
- Genesis Fertilizers, Stamicarbon partner to advance sustainable urea production 1/14
- Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical to invest $2.9 B to upgrade Chinese operations 1/14