Loss Prevention
View/Alt-View: Giving voice to alternative views
Our publication often features a Viewpoint column, an executive-level short opinion piece that usually focuses on the author’s sector of the hydrocarbon processing industry. This month, we are featuring two columns back-to-back, presenting alternative views on a single topic. We use the word “alternative” deliberately—rather than “opposing”—as we wish to highlight views that present legitimately different perspectives.
Could your facility benefit from a marine terminal assessment?
How sure would a terminal manager at a distribution terminal, or a line manager at a refinery or a chemical plant that has marine loading and unloading docks, be that those docks are being operated at a level that ensures long-term safe performance?
Analyze the startup vibration of hot pumps to prevent trips
Online monitoring and diagnostic systems are used by petrochemical plants and refineries worldwide for their critical machinery monitoring capabilities.
Modified revamp process to reduce energy use in an SDA unit
Solvent deasphalting (SDA) is emerging as a low-cost, bottom-of-the-barrel upgrading process to recover valuable oil from short residue. This oil can either be further processed to make lube-oil-based stocks or cracked in secondary processing units.
Innovations
Siemens has been working closely with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on a cyber security project.
Industry Perspectives: The digitalization of the downstream industry
The digitalization of the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) is in full swing. Numerous companies have created, and are optimizing, digital technologies to improve plant operations, increase energy efficiency and lower costs.
Digital: Transitioning from the spreadsheet to the Cloud
The Industrial Internet of Things is expected to create a $225-B market by 2020, opening new opportunities for industrial organizations related to data and asset management.
California safety, health board approves new hazard regulations for refineries
OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Department of Industrial Relations' (DIR) Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved a regulation to strengthen workplace safety and health at oil refineries across the state. The new regulation provides a framework for anticipating, preventing and responding to hazards at refineries.
Equipment critical analysis: The need for an effective maintenance program
Oil refineries and large petrochemical plants contain thousands of pieces of process and utilities equipment that are subject to wear, erosion, deterioration, aging, etc., resulting in increasing breakdowns and outages. Imagine being a maintenance engineer and receiving 50 work orders during an overhaul with a limited budget, time, labor, spare parts, tools, machines, etc. How does that engineer prioritize the work?
Business Trends: Human reliability—a disruptive innovation
Annual bottom-line losses due to equipment failures total more than $100 MM at major refineries and petrochemical complexes. Corporate executives charge plant personnel with improving the reliability of the facility.
- ExxonMobil plans 1 Blbs/yr of advanced recycling by 2027 11/22
- Gauging the likely Trump effect on U.S. energy and power sectors 11/22
- Russia's Lukoil restoring cracker at NORSI refinery, gasoline output rising 11/22
- Nigeria's local currency crude sales fall short of target, Dangote refinery says 11/22
- U.S. October gasoline imports hit post-pandemic low on slump in European shipments 11/22
- Clean Hydrogen Works awards McDermott FEED contract for Ascension Clean Energy (ACE) project 11/21
