The refining industry is facing increased pressures, such as crude oil supply changes, changing product distributions and increasing regulations. These pressure points create a highly competitive market where refiners are looking for options that include digitally transforming operations and adapting new technologies to enhance safety and improve uptime, flexibility and efficiency, while securing their competitive position in a dynamic market. Improving personnel and process safety remains a top focus area for refiners.
Today’s tools are often specialized for a certain type of task; however, they often lack the connectivity that would enable the easy comparison and cross-reference of asset information. Engineering tools are well suited for design and build phases, but may be less suited for use in operations and maintenance.
Gas processing, liquefaction, oil refining, bulk petrochemicals and chemicals plants represent a large population of frontline engineers and technical managers. Their professional lives will become increasingly impacted by the growing adoption of disruptive digital technologies and digital platforms.
Nigeria LNG (NLNG), a consortium comprised of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), Shell, Total and Eni, has greenlighted the expansion of the Bonny Island LNG terminal.
Expanding LNG supply worldwide will continue to dominate the changing landscape of the natural gas industry and gas trade. By 2040, LNG is expected to account for more than 15% of global gas consumption, after overtaking interregional pipeline deliveries in the late 2020s.
In December 2019, Hydrocarbon Processing's launched its new podcast series: The Main Column. The podcast series will feature the latest in hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) trends, technology developments, engineering and operations.
Thompson, C., American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM)
A 15-yr rise in U.S. exports of refined products continued in 2019 with the nation exporting more than ever, underscoring the importance of these products to fueling a growing world. In the latter half of the last decade, U.S. petrochemical production capacity increased—with more than $20 B invested in domestic petrochemical projects in the last 2 yr alone—and exports of petrochemicals and petrochemical feedstocks rose, as well.
What is the future of refining and petrochemical operations? One trend that has been the focus of many articles, whitepapers and conference presentations is the digital transformation of the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI).
With the ever-increasing speed of technology innovation around the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and cloud offerings, industrial manufacturers are evaluating how these new solutions can impact their daily operations. Specifically, they are looking at how these innovations enable real-time, actionable insights across processes, assets and the workforce. These insights allow for quicker and more informed decisions, thereby driving efficiency and profitability.
Internal inspections of pressure equipment involve a full inspection of the equipment. Inspection engineers and inspectors depend heavily on internal inspections to retrieve useful data, which includes information on active degradation mechanisms, corrosion rates, remaining equipment life, failure occurrences and failure expectations, among other critical details.