October 2019

October 23, 2019 marks the 30-yr anniversary of a devastating fire and explosion that claimed the lives of 23 workers at a major chemical plant in Pasadena, Texas.

HPInnovative solutions assist hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) facilities in meeting present and ever-changing air emissions regulations and strict operating permits.

Industry can no longer afford to take a casual approach to the potential impacts of natural disasters on the operational reliability and integrity of physical plants and assets.

Refineries worldwide often face practical challenges and operating issues when processing opportunity crude oils to maximize profit margins.

Refinery hydrofining units must undergo planned and emergency shutdowns for catalyst changeover.

Phase equilibrium properties, such as bubble-point, hydrocarbon dewpoint, water dewpoint, phase envelope, two-phase compositions, compressibility factor, hydrate equilibrium properties, etc., for hydrocarbon mixtures have been calculated accurately using the Peng-Robinson cubic equation of state by implementing constant and temperature-dependent binary interaction parameters in the Van der Waals mixing rule.

Bio-based, renewable fuels and chemicals can reduce the environmental footprint of maintaining global transportation and product demands, while also supplementing traditional fossil fuels in a global environment with increasing energy demand.

The need for a more sustainable energy mix is setting a challenge for refinery operators.

Opportunities are always available to decrease energy consumption in process units.

The development of industrial control systems (ICS) over the past two decades has changed the face of many industries.

Pinch analysis provides techniques for heat integration to design the heat exchanger network (HEN), not only for grassroots design but also to retrofit an existing system and optimize the process.

It’s that time again! Hydrocarbon Processing has announced the nominees for its annual Top Project awards.

An alternative to the above title would be “Test your rotating equipment engineers’ IQ.”

When equipment fails, it indicates weak points and usually exposes the cause(s) of the failure.

ARC Advisory Group’s 23rd annual Industry Forum included a panel discussion that explored the relative merits of integrated vs. non-integrated safety systems in an increasingly connected world.

A colleague of mine once suggested to a chemical plant operator that it was a good idea to apply patches to Windows-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) servers as soon as they become available every month—after all, a lot of them fix security vulnerabilities.

In early September, Hydrocarbon Processing staff learned that the publication was nominated for several publishing awards by Folio magazine.

Downstream executives will remember the present decade as a golden age for the industry, driven by low feedstock prices and healthy end-use demand.

In the oil and gas industry, failing to perform ongoing maintenance on equipment can have severe consequences, including reduced equipment service life, unplanned shutdowns and degraded performance.

ABB has appointed Maryrose Sylvester as Country Managing Director and Head of electrification for the US.