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Flint Hills to close North Pole refinery in Alaska

HP Editorial Staff: HP News Services

Flint Hills will permanently shut its 85,000 bpd North Pole refinery, Alaska’s largest by capacity, citing poor economics and high costs for cleaning up soil and groundwater.

CB&I to provide pipe fabrication for Dow Chemical projects on US Gulf

Dow's investment plan, for which CB&I was selected, includes construction of a new propylene and ethylene production unit in Texas and four new polyethylene plants in Texas and Louisiana.

Solvay to expand Wyoming soda ash production

Solvay plans to increase its production capacity of natural soda ash at its Green River plant in Wyoming by 150,000 tpy as of early next year, to meet growing demand of its US export markets.

GE launches new global business for downstream technology solutions

GE Oil & Gas on Monday announced the launch of its new downstream technology solutions (DTS) business to more efficiently supply equipment and services to refining and petrochemical markets.

Linde starts up specialty gases plant in Indiana

The new plant produces medical, oxidizing, inert gases and blends along with specialty gas mixtures for scientific and research use. These products are intended for both domestic and international markets.

Marathon Petroleum acquires Ohio biodiesel plant

The Ohio plant currently produces several products including biodiesel and glycerin, with a total capacity of about 4,100 bpd. The transaction is expected to close in April 2014.

Case history: Characterization of shale oils and heat exchanger performance

KBC Advanced Technologies, Inc.: Sayles, S.  |  Romero, S.

LTOs are paraffinic, low in asphaltenes but high in filterable solids. Understanding the impact of these mechanisms can shed light on preheat exchanger performance and the prediction of fouling rates.

Optimize hydrogen plant efficiency with new MTS catalysts

Technip: Hartono, T.

To study the impact on plant efficiency of using MTS catalysts, a comparison case study was held between the HTS-based and MTS-based H2 designs currently in operation.

Russian refiners use oxygenates to preserve octane

RAS, A.V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas: Levinbuk, M.
OAO Gazprom Neft: Kuznetsov, S. E.
Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas: Zolotarev, A. S.

A case study was conducted regarding the physical and chemical properties of key gasoline oxygenates, such as methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), tertiary amyl methyl ether (TAME) and other blending components.

Improve the isomerization of alkanes by catalytic distillation

St. Petersburg State Institute: Lisitsyn, N. V.  |  Chuparev, E. V.  |  Zernov, P. A.

The isomerization of light gasoline fractions is crucial to producing high-octane fuels and to reducing the benzene content in gasoline. One of the most promising options for isomerization is catalytic distillation.