Expanding LNG supply worldwide will continue to dominate the changing landscape of the natural gas industry and gas trade. By 2040, LNG is expected to account for more than 15% of global gas consumption, after overtaking interregional pipeline deliveries in the late 2020s.
Since the 1970s, Brazil has been a world reference in automotive biofuels, especially bioethanol produced from sugarcane. In 1973, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) forced a sharp rise in oil prices, triggering a massive slowdown in the country’s economic growth, which had been going through what was dubbed the “economic miracle,” with growth at an average of 12% of GDP. This study gives an overview of the biofuel sector in Brazil, along with the main business challenges and opportunities in this area.
Significant change is coming to the hydrocarbons industry. Up to 43% of the global conventional polymer production expected by 2040 may disappear due to circular economy (CE) initiatives. In addition, due to the growth in wind turbines and solar panels, and in lightweight composite materials in cars and planes, advanced materials waste is just beginning.
The skills gap is not a new phenomenon for the oil and gas sector. An aging workforce and increased competition for tomorrow’s technical talent have left the industry nervous about its future. On the heels of the 2019 Global Energy Talent Index (GETI), a panel of experts came together to discuss the sector’s ongoing struggle with the skills gap and what oil and gas/energy companies can do about it.
Equatorial Guinea plans to invest $1 B to build several energy projects, including the construction of two new refineries, each with a capacity of 30,000 bpd–40,000 bpd, as well as oil storage facilities, a methanol-to-gasoline plant and an LNG expansion project.
Hydrocarbon Processing’s Construction Boxscore Database is tracking more than 1,430 projects around the world, representing nearly $1.9 T in capital expenditures.
Over the past several years, investments in petrochemicals capacity additions have skyrocketed. Hundreds of billions of dollars have and will be invested in additional petrochemicals units and complexes.
Kyriakou, S.,
Plellis, C.,
Tatsis, V.,
Damianou, C.,
Gkanis, D., Hellenic Petroleum;
Burgess, T.,
González, R., W. R. Grace
Hellenic Petroleum S.A.’s Aspropyrgos refinery is located near Athens, Greece. It has a total refining capacity of approximately 7.5 MMtpy and a Nelson complexity index of 9.7. The refinery was built in 1958 and has undergone several upgrades, including the installation of a fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU).
Kılıç, D.,
Bahadır Kara, İ.,
Rakıcı Önder, E.,
Reyhan Dinçer, A.,
Dönmez Yavuz, G.,
ÖzsaĞıroĞlu, E., Tüpraş
Hydrocrackers are key refinery units that convert heavy feed components into valuable lighter products. The profitability of these units is directly related to this conversion level. Conversion reactions take place in a nearly pure hydrogen environment, with the help of selective catalysts, under high pressure and high temperature. The products of the unit are separated in the fractionator section. Unconverted oil taken from the fractionator bottoms reveals the conversion performance of the unit.
Mhatre, S.,
Warke, V., Reliance Industries Ltd.;
Choi, A.,
Molinier, M.,
Saple, A., ExxonMobil Chemical Co.
In a typical xylene loop, C8 aromatics are fractionated out of a heavy reformate C8+ aromatics stream and collected in the xylene column overhead. Then, paraxylene (PX) from the C8 aromatics stream is recovered as product—usually by an adsorption or crystallization process—in the PX recovery section.