Last month, Hydrocarbon Processing presented its mid-year market update to a global audience.
U.S. Gulf Coast margins increased, supported by unplanned refinery outages that limited a stronger recovery in run rates and kept product outputs relatively supressed.
The crude oil refining processing sequence is based on the separation of distillate products from heavier ones and concentrating the heavy molecules of the barrel for processing at the end of the refining run.
Optimization—the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource—is not a term that the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) takes lightly: it is a way of life.
An interesting case involving sour seal oil traps in an offshore application recently came to our attention.
Bazan Group’s crude unit No. 3—not designed by any of the authors’ companies—was bottlenecked by the preflash tower.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”. Fortunately, this opening line from A Tale of Two Cities does not often present itself as an appropriate analogy to the oil and gas industry. Yet, here we are.
What is reliability? Most people think reliability is simply a measure of failure, or lack of failure. If something runs for a longer period without failing, then it is more reliable than something that runs for less time. However, reliability is a measure of how often something performs when you want it to.
In these challenging times, fluidized catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) aim to improve margins by processing poorer- or different-quality feeds, while maintaining good yield performance.
Brun, L. A.,
Majorel, C.,
Thoret-Bauchet, J. P., Total;
Pothuaud, A.,
Cross, C., SUEZ Water Technologies & Solutions
Weak organic amines are commonly used in crude unit overhead systems to prevent acidic corrosion from chlorides and other acidic contaminants via a neutralization reaction.