Environment & Safety Gas Processing/LNG Maintenance & Reliability Petrochemicals Process Control Process Optimization Project Management Refining

Process Optimization

ExxonMobil, Arisdyne eye cavitation process for downstream production

The new multi-year agreement covers the development and commercialization of applications based on the CFC technology within the global petroleum industry.

Jacobs to upgrade PTA plants for BP in Belgium

BP’s Geel site is a major producer of purified terephthalic acid and paraxylene, used in the manufacture of polyesters. The goal is to optimize operational performance of the BP Geel facilities.

KBR to revamp Mosaic ammonia plant in Louisiana

KBR’s “lean FEED” approach will debottleneck the plant and increase Mosaic’s ammonia production capacity by 20% at their plant located on the banks of the Mississippi, just south of Baton Rouge.

Shale gas drives new opportunities for US downstream

Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology: Maller, A.  |  Dharia, D.  |  Gbordzoe, E.
Axens: Lambert, N.

This shift to lighter feeds for the SC will reduce the future availability of other petrochemical feedstocks—in particular, propylene.

DCS migration: Lessons learned

TOTAL Port Arthur refinery: Conley, R.

In 2005, TOTAL’s Port Arthur refinery (PAR), like many present-day refining and petrochemical facilities, found itself with an obsolete, at-capacity distributed control system (DCS). As shown in ..

Avoid counterproductive project management practices

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Bloch, Heinz P.

For many years, reliability-focused engineers have observed flawed procurement processes for mechanical equipment. Many requirements are supposedly aimed at the lowest possible lifecycle cost; however..

Fine-tune monitoring of critical compressors

PROGNOST Systems GmbH: Loeken, J.

In this case history, a new monitoring system was installed on a critical service hyper compressor for a Middle East (ME) ethylene complex. This unit supported two 400 Mton polyethylene (PE) units; do..

Consider technology to reduce compressor vibration and noise problems

Dresser-Rand: Liu, Z.

Industrial centrifugal compressors installed in hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) complexes absorb significant amounts of mechanical power when compressing gases. A small part of the mechanical en..

Achieve successful compressor startup by addressing dry-gas seal failure

Toyo Engineering Canada Ltd.: Zardynezhad, S.

A common root cause for compressor failure during first startup is a failure of the dry-gas seal (DGS) system. To avoid failures of gas compressors, the project team and end users must understand the importance and significance of the DGS very early in the basic design phase.

HP Reliability: Plan now to deal with stressed equipment later

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Bloch, Heinz P.

The US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) “Today in Energy” brief evaluated how US refineries are processing record amounts of crude oil (Fig. 1), with Midwest and Gulf Co..