Americas
Saudi Aramco investigates Tyco valve contracts after bribery charges
Saudi Aramco has suspended further dealings with Tyco Valves & Controls Middle East while it looks into contracts it signed with the firm between 2003 and 2006, according to a source. Tyco pleaded guilty last week in a US court to paying bribes to officials employed by Aramco.
HP Impact: Natural gas vehicles could be gaining traction
Natural gas vehicles could be gaining tractionA new report from PIRA Energy Group says that the sheer volume of US recoverable gas resources relative to expected demand suggests that benchmark Henry H..
HP Impact: Marginal increase forecast in North American lubricant market
Marginal increase forecast in North American lubricant marketAlthough it is estimated that there will be a 3% increase in tonnage carried by private fleet operators in the US through 2016, this is exp..
HP Construction: North America
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has a contract from Methanex Corp. to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for a methanol production facility in Louisiana. Officials estimate the c..
HP Construction: South America
A subsidiary of Foster Wheeler AG’s Global Engineering and Construction Group has a contract from Petrobras for a world-scale grassroots gas-to-chemicals complex—Complexo Gás-Quími..
HP Reliability: Equipment life extension involves upgrades
Every plant wants to get more service life from site machinery. Since about 1990, quite a number of start-up consulting companies have formed to advise clients on equipment life extension. These compa..
HP Integration Strategies: Recent trends shape the future of DCS
Several trends have already impacted the distributed control system (DCS) market and are likely to continue over the next few years. These include both product- and technology-related trends and gener..
HP Water Management: Consider software tools for water reuse projects
The hydrocarbon processing industry needs reliable and economic sources of water for present and future operations. Ensuring a sustainable water supply requires a focused effort to evaluate the qualit..
Update hydrocracking reactor controls for improved reliability
The industry consultant believes auto-quench, excursion control and bed-outlet layers should join auto-depressure as industry-best practice for all hydrocrackers.
Use a systematized approach of good practices in pygas hydrogenation via APC
APC with inferential modeling was successfully applied to pygas hydrogenation units. The lengthening of the catalyst run length limits downtime for both the pygas unit and upstream units such as the steam cracker.

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