Refining
Asia fuel oil: Buyers re-emerge to narrow cash discounts, spreads sag
DUBAI (Reuters) -- Buyers of physical cargoes re-emerged in the Platts window on Monday helping narrow cash discounts of Asia's 380-cst fuel oil, but a prevalence of bearish sentiment in the paper markets weighed on near-dated time spreads of the fuel.
PetroChina Dalian refinery exports first Australian-spec diesel cargo
BEIJING (Reuters) -- PetroChina's Dalian oil refinery exported on Feb. 27 a 40,000 t cargo of diesel fuel with that met Australian fuel quality specifications, the first shipment of its kind from China, according to a statement posted on the website of the state assets regulator on Monday.
Guyana says future oil output could be refined in Trinidad, Suriname
GEORGETOWN (Reuters) -- The South American nation of Guyana could send future oil production to Trinidad and Tobago or Suriname for refining, a government official said on Thursday.
China's largest 'teapot' refiner, CEFC team up in Shandong oil terminal venture
BEIJING (Reuters) -- Dongming Petrochemical, China's largest independent or 'teapot' refiner, has signed a deal with privately run CEFC China Energy and a local port authority to build a crude oil terminal in Shandong province, seeking to ease a logistics bottleneck gripping the country's teapot oil sector.
Industry Metrics
The European market saw stronger domestic demand amid gasoline export opportunities to West Africa and higher volumes of naphtha and fuel oil to Asia, fed by continued strong demand in that region. After recovery from the impact of the Colonial Pipeline outage, US refinery runs have risen, mainly in the USGC, taking advantage of stronger export opportunities and ahead of the spring maintenance season.
Business Trends: Africa—Will increasing demand spark downstream capacity builds?
Over the past decade, Africa’s oil demand has increased by more than 1 MMbpd, to nearly 3.9 MMbpd. Africa’s oil production is more than double the amount it consumes, but lack of investment, failing infrastructure and inadequate refining capacity force the continent to rely on imports to satisfy increasing fuel demand.
Alternatives to flare gas recovery for sour refinery flare gas
For many sour gas streams present in a flare header, less expensive options than flare gas recovery may exist. The compressors, liquids management, downstream treating and other systems required for flare gas recovery (FGR) can be expensive to install and/or operate reliably. Some refineries allow the flaring of sweet gases.
Vibration studies offer valuable lessons for correcting problematic operations
All plants have a vibration monitoring program for rotating equipment. Portable instruments measure vibration at the bearing housing of machines at horizontal (x), vertical (y) and axial (z) directions. The frequency spectrum helps diagnose the causes of vibration.
Advance analytics to keep pace with production
Predicting the state of the energy industry a year or two from now is difficult. At best, potential scenarios can be envisioned, as in the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2016. Through this analysis of data and market reports, the IEA casts its projections for different scenarios to the year 2040. The IEA expects the fastest growth to occur in renewable energy, given recent climate pledges by global governments.
Implement proactive asset management techniques
The drop in crude oil prices since 2014 has impacted both upstream producers and downstream players. Upstream producers—those responsible for exploration, drilling and production—were the first to feel the effects. While refining margins benefitted from the drop in crude oil pricing, they began to suffer when record surpluses of gasoline and diesel flooded the market a year later.
- BASF supports European 1,4‑butanediol supply security through increased production in Ludwigshafen 2/16
- Vitol backs proposed $3-billion LNG power plant for South Africa's Durban port 2/16
- HAMR Energy receives additional funding for low-carbon liquid fuels projects 2/16
- NASCAR names POET official bioethanol partner: Becomes first major motorsports series to utilize zero-carbon bioethanol 2/16
- ExxonMobil starts third advanced plastics recycling unit at Baytown complex 2/16
- Geoinform, subsidiary of the MOL Group, signs strategic cooperation agreement with Baker Hughes 2/16
