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Crude oil

Editorial Comment: Optimization: Advancing the industry’s evolution and benefits to the masses

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Nichols, Lee

Optimization—the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource—is not a term that the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) takes lightly: it is a way of life.

Reliability: Exploring better compressor sour seal oil traps

Professional engineer: Bloch, H. P.

An interesting case involving sour seal oil traps in an offshore application recently came to our attention.

Good distributor design for high-velocity feed debottlenecks a crude preflash tower

Bazan Group: Blum, B.
Fluor: Kister, H.
Koch-Glitsch: Tsang, R.

Bazan Group’s crude unit No. 3—not designed by any of the authors’ companies—was bottlenecked by the preflash tower.

Executive Viewpoint: It was the best of times

KBC, a Yokogawa Company: Howell, A.  |  Byfield, R.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”. Fortunately, this opening line from A Tale of Two Cities does not often present itself as an appropriate analogy to the oil and gas industry. Yet, here we are.

Business Trends: The economics of reliability—An interim report on the global refining industry

Pinnacle: Krimmel, J.

What is reliability? Most people think reliability is simply a measure of failure, or lack of failure. If something runs for a longer period without failing, then it is more reliable than something that runs for less time. However, reliability is a measure of how often something performs when you want it to.

Understanding HCN in FCC: Formation, effects and mitigating options

BASF: Riva, S.
Chalcat Consulting: Challis, S.

In these challenging times, fluidized catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) aim to improve margins by processing poorer- or different-quality feeds, while maintaining good yield performance.

TOTAL refineries improve overhead systems corrosion and salting with amine-neutralizing technology

SUEZ Water Technologies & Solutions: Pothuaud, A.  |  Cross, C.

Weak organic amines are commonly used in crude unit overhead systems to prevent acidic corrosion from chlorides and other acidic contaminants via a neutralization reaction.

Leveraging digital technologies to create the smart renewable diesel facility

OSIsoft: Harclerode, C.

Many companies are modifying existing crude refineries or building grassroots renewable diesel facilities to produce drop-in, green renewable diesel from a variety of agriculturally derived triglyceride feedstocks.

Reducing acid consumption: Maximizing sulfuric acid alkylation unit profitability

DuPont Clean Technologies: Peterson, J. R.  |  Rana, D.  |  Ewing, R.

Alkylation is a process used to produce highly branched isoparaffins from the reaction of lighter olefins and isobutane in the presence of sulfuric acid as a catalyst.

Converting a petroleum diesel refinery for renewable diesel

Burns & McDonnell: Chan, E.

As refiners consider renewable, low-carbon alternatives, renewable diesel—refined from agricultural products using petroleum refinery processes—is gaining traction.