Paraxylene production is a highly cyclical business that is subject to changes in the global economy and dependent on feedstock costs, alternative dispositions for aromatics, utilities costs and plant locations, among other factors. With the large PX capacity added by recently started crude-to-chemicals complexes and the expected impact of the economic recession on commodities demand, many aromatics complexes face a significant slowdown in the coming months or, possibly, years.
The negative impact of fossil fuels on the environment has become widely accepted, and our global society has begun to focus on alternative fuels. The pollution of the local, regional and global environment has become a primary concern.
Progress in the driverless car segment has served to illuminate one of the major future goals in industrial and process manufacturing: autonomous operations in process plants—in other words, the autonomous plant. While AO for process plants has received interest from the process automation and control industry, limited serious discussion has taken place in the process operations and IT domains.
Over the next two months, Hydrocarbon Processing will host two separate events for a global audience. One will gather the brightest minds in the industry to share the latest innovations and technologies in the industry, while the other will recognize the leaders in advancing the industry toward safer and more reliable, sustainable and profitable operations. Both events—Hydrocarbon Processing’s IRPC and the HP Awards—will be streamed on digital platforms and free to view.
Sphera has released a new Interactive piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) solution that helps organizations break down silos between their operations, maintenance and engineering departments while simplifying isolation planning.
No doubt exists that COVID-19 is disrupting the oil and gas industry. Oil prices are falling, demand is down, supply is up, and storage capacity is limited. In these difficult times, the industry must swiftly act to keep business viable to come back strong when conditions improve.
Refineries, petrochemical plants and similar facilities rely on a significant number of heat exchangers for process control and product formulation throughout the plant.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have become a growing concern for many industrialized countries over the past few years.
Flare systems are used in refineries and chemical plants as a last line of defense for the plant by burning all unwanted gases and liquid during any upset or emergency condition.
An innovative refinery process arrangementa converts butane-rich, light paraffinic streams—preferably containing a high proportion of isobutane—into butylene by dehydrogenation.