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

Europe

Shell extinguishes olefins unit fire at German site

“We do not comment on the operational status of affected units,” the spokesperson said. "But to make it clear: [there is] no total shutdown of the Wesseling site.”

BASF names Kinetix as gas treatment distributor for ammonia, syngas

Under the OASE brand, BASF offers its novel amine-based gas treatment technology for gases containing hydrogen and/or carbon dioxide for ammonia and syngas applications.

A Schulman to relocate European services center from Belgium to Poland

Plans call for this phased relocation to be completed by May 2016.

AkzoNobel sells paper chemicals unit to Kemira

AkzoNobel has finalized the €153 million divestment of its global paper chemicals business to Kemira. The deal was first announced in July 2014.

Reduce maintenance and production losses by benchmarking asset performance

Meridium, Inc.: Naik, M.

Benchmarking can help operators identify assets with chronic failures, and it can also drive failure elimination efforts to improve their reliability and availability while cost cutting.

Consider new labyrinth seals to optimize compressor operations

Flexware, Inc.: Gresh, M. T.
John Crane Engineered Bearings: Whalen, J. K.

Degradation of labyrinth seals in centrifugal impellers can have a significant impact on not only compressor power consumption but also on plant production rate. Upgrading to rub-tolerant seals can be..

Maximize energy recovery with small steam turbines

Energent: Kaupert, K.
Energent Corp.: Krull, R.  |  Iles, R.

Using smaller turbines (50 kW to 300 kW) can aid system efficiency and help conserve energy. We investigate examples in which the application of smaller steam turbines provided return on investment within two years.

Lubrication update for rotating equipment

Professional engineer: Bloch, H. P.

API-610 is the most widely used pump standard in the petrochemical and refining industries. It includes experience-based recommendations for lubricant applications and one of those recommendations rel..

Improve relief-device sizing under supercritical conditions

Smith & Burgess LLC: D. Smith
Smith and Burgess LLC: Burgess, J.

Properly sized relief devices under supercritical conditions are vital to processing natural gas and gas condensates into olefins. These processes operate near the critical locus of the process gases ..

Improve measurement of heavy oil viscosity

University of Calgary: Sundararaj, U.  |  Sadeghi, S.  |  Sadeghi, F.

This work will study the viscosity behavior of bitumen and its blends with diluent at different temperatures, as well as evaluating simulations for prediction of viscosity of the blend.A blend of bitu..