Asia/Pacific
Improve FCC margins by processing more vacuum residue in feed
With the greater processing of heavy crude oils in refineries, the importance of fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) has increased.
HP Viewpoint: Interesting times to continue for refiners in 2016
A year ago in this publication, John England and Ashnu Mittal were prescient in their article titled “US shale revolution set to spill over into downstream.”
HP Industry Metrics
Global refinery margins fell due to the expectations of a mild winter and an oversupply environment.
HP People
Michael D. Scott has been named an International Society of Automation (ISA) Fellow, a distinguished grade that is granted to ISA senior members in recognition of outstanding achievements in scientific or engineering fields.
Honeywell licenses methanol-to-olefins technology to Chinese coal project
LUXI will use UOP's advanced methanol-to-olefins (MTO) process to convert methanol derived from gasified coal into 293,000 tpy of ethylene and propylene at its facility in Liaocheng, Shandong Province.
LyondellBasell to buy polypropylene compounding business of India’s Zylog
Upon completion of the acquisition, LyondellBasell will double its automotive customer base in India and become the third largest producer of polypropylene (PP) compounds in the country.
Iran targets new investments in refineries abroad
"Buying the oil refineries or their shares abroad is the policy of Iran after the lifting of sanctions," said Abbas Kazemi, head of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co.
Indian Oil plans $500MM expansion of Panipat naphtha cracker by 2019
The expansion would increase capacity of the Panipat cracker in northern India from about 850,000 tpy to 1.2 MMtpy by 2019. It would cost about half-a-billion dollars, a company official said.
Shell opens new lube blending plant in Indonesia
The plant will produce Shell’s leading lubricants brands like Shell Helix (passenger car motor oil), Shell Advance (motorcycle oil), Shell Rimula (heavy duty engine oil) and Shell Spirax (transmission oil).
Honeywell to modernize operations at Refining NZ
Building on a relationship of over 25 years, New Zealand's Refining NZ selected Honeywell to provide full lifecycle maintenance for the refinery’s control systems, as well as to migrate the refinery to the most recent process control technology, Honeywell’s Experion PKS.

- Evonik inaugurates its 100,000-tpy alkoxides plant in Singapore 8/27
- Borouge collaborates with Yokogawa on autonomous AI control room 8/27
- Vietnam to make switch to ethanol-blended fuel in move to boost U.S. imports 8/27
- Sherwin-Williams launches single-coat high-performance Acrolon 680 for industrial and marine assets 8/27
- Trump tariffs force much-needed petrochemicals contraction 8/27
- First of five pyrolysis reactors delivered to the tire recycling plant in Uddevalla 8/27