How to decarbonize the chemical industry

A recent Topsoe blog post (aka press release) features an interview with Louise Bjerregaard Nielsen, Topsoe’s Head of Sustainability, on the question of what it takes for an energy intensive chemical company to get to zero. The interview does not offer a great deal in the way of technical detail. But even so, it is worth the minute of your time that it will take you to read it. Here is one tidbit that struck me …

“What’s interesting about Chemicals is that we work both as an enabler for the decarbonization of hard to abate sectors – while being a hard-to-abate sector ourselves.”

Nielsen acknowledges the fundamental dilemma faced by the chemicals industry. The industry can provide tools for decarbonization, but the creation of these same tools requires problematic carbon producing processes. I appreciate her candor. It is a conundrum. And I hope Topsoe can resolve it.

Here is the text of the blog post …

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September 26, 2022
How to decarbonize the chemical industry
By Louise Bjerregård Nielsen
With an ambitious commitment to go net zero by 2040, Topsoe is ready to take the lead in chemicals' intricate route toward green. But what does it take for an energy intensive chemical company to get to zero? We’ve asked Louise Bjerregaard Nielsen, Topsoe’s Head of Sustainability, to give us the insights.

So, Louise, is there a silver bullet?

“The short answer to that is no. At Topsoe, we understand the challenges, and we have a clear vision of what we want to achieve, but we don’t know the details of our route to get there – at least, not yet. What’s interesting about Chemicals is that we work both as an enabler for the decarbonization of hard to abate sectors – while being a hard-to-abate sector ourselves. Chemicals play such a pivotal role in our society and industrial infrastructure – today and in the future - that we can’t just scale down. We need to transform.”

Many industries today have a good understanding of their role in reaching Net-Zero by 2050 as set out in the Paris agreement. Are Chemicals any different?

“No – the industry understands its role and responsibility. But the complexity is enormous, and if we look at the Science Based Targets initiative for example – there are no sector guidelines for chemicals. It is simply too difficult. It’s also no secret that the journey to net-zero for Chemicals will come with a significant cost and effort. But that is not holding Topsoe back. We have a vision to become a global leader in decarbonization – that doesn’t just apply for the zero carbon and low carbon solutions we provide our customers; it also applies for ourselves.”

So how do you go about this at Topsoe?

“Well, we are turning a lot of stones to evaluate which actions are feasible and can create most value for money. But there are some main pathways. We are first and foremost looking at how we can optimize our production processes to eliminate the emissions from our chemical processes.

Secondly, we are looking at investing in renewable energy, just like a lot of other companies – so renewable energy build-out is quite urgent across the board in terms of decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors.

When it comes to our electricity consumption, we have set ourselves a target to transition to 80% renewable electricity by 2025. It is harder for us to reduce the emissions associated with fuel combustion, i.e., the natural gas that we consume. Electrification is not always the answer for companies like ours that require heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius in our processes.”

Topsoe just announced its commitment to going Net-Zero in 2040. That includes Topsoe’s value chain. How will you reach that target?

“One thing is for sure - we can’t do this without partnerships. We rely on our suppliers and customers to take some of the same initiative as us, and together we will learn and develop as an industry.

We can see that it is becoming an important aspect of license to operate for some suppliers, and they are primarily driven by the benefits decarbonization brings in terms of funding and customer requirements. For our customers, the situation is a bit different – they are facing pressure from the public, and they also driven by the opportunities to access green funding, but the regulatory frameworks will be key in pushing their transition to low carbon operations.”

How can the chemical industry enable the decarbonization of other industries?

“From an overall perspective, our industry provides materials used for production of green hydrogen, manufacturing of solar panels and wind turbines – but also a ton of products our welfare society depend on. So, chemicals are a key enabler in finding sustainable solutions beneficial to society.

At Topsoe, we can make a significant difference across the full energy value chain with our offering of technologies needed to transform renewable electricity, biomass, and waste into green hydrogen, green ammonia, eMethanol, eFuels and bio-based fuels that will power a sustainable future. And we are well underway with helping customers globally with revamping their oil refineries to produce bio-based diesel and SAF, building plants for low carbon hydrogen production, and once our SOEC electrolyzer manufacturing plant is up and running, we’ll also be able to deliver electrolysis to produce green hydrogen and derivatives. So, the future looks bright.”

source: https://blog.topsoe.com/how-to-decarbonize-the-chemical-industry?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=227257632&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9hwEHM-SRu7oqAS5fYrWidcAPUI1rxF2AwV2xKSZti8fG0my5OkyQZOTGqS_OolPt1OBy93ufLSwhPwadgsfhkFKnUEA&utm_content=227257632&utm_source=hs_email
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TIP: Google® the Topsoe blog title How to decarbonize the chemical industry
Two results …

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The challenge of decarbonizing the chemicals industry - Worley
 “The first efforts in decarbonizing processes will be applied to existing manufacturing plants, to make the most of that existing capital investment. The ...
source: https://www.worley.com/our-thinking/the-challenge-of-decarbonizing-the-chemicals-industry
source: https://www.worley.com/~/media/Files/W/Worley-V3/documents/our-thinking/decarbonizing-chemical-industry/decarbonizing-the-chemical-industry.pdf

Electrification and Decarbonization of the Chemical Industry
by ZJ Schiffer · 2017 · Cited by 194 — In order to decarbonize the chemical industry, we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by closing and moving beyond the current carbon
source: https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2542435117300156?token=A2412A6554C64841A7B0BA8FB34BFC909EF270CBB566EC6DD76897E898A0F3BDA72727C71C5CD482EEE5B0C9E9E17477&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20220926190544
source: https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2542435117300156?token=0C89845FD8995527BA44C39B138DB8C96125BD1249FEB8C3B5C26D9DB465A0DF6FBCEC561ECA908E3A784EF0BF21CF94&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20221004204515

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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/ to see examples of the services we can provide

Decarbonizing Aviation

A recent Haldor Topsoe blog post describes the company’s HydroFlex™ technology, which can produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from any commercially available feedstock.

Granted, this is a brag that must be substantiated by third parties. Still, the post is quite informative. I recommend it to anyone interested in decarbonizing aviation.

Here is the full text of the Haldor Topsoe post.

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February 10, 2022
What does it take to decarbonize aviation?
By Ulrik Frøhlke

There’s no mincing words when it comes to the environmental impact of air travel: jet fuel is far from climate-neutral. Air traffic emits over 1 billion tons of CO2 annually, accounting for 3% of all global emissions. Government leaders are expressing their desire to see this contribution reduced, with clear targets being set across both the US and EU for increased production, incorporation, and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). As a leader in decarbonization and renewable technologies, Topsoe says it’s about time.

“Can’t air travel be electrically powered?”
While electric planes may well end up fulfilling shorter-distance domestic roles, a fully electrified aviation industry would be difficult to realize, given the physical challenges posed by attempting to integrate high-capacity batteries within current fuselage designs; a 747 would require a battery so enormous that the remaining cabin space could accommodate only a handful of passengers.

As such, it’s estimated that most planes will still utilize drop-in fuels by 2050, so the question is not whether SAF is the answer to supporting carbon-neutral aviation, but rather the extent to which global SAF availability can be increased in the coming years in order to realize this ambitious goal.

“What’s standing in the way?”
A variety of obstacles lie between the aviation industry and sustainable operation. For a start, commercial airlines aren’t currently allowed to fly on SAF alone. A maximum blend ratio of 50% sustainable fuel to 50% fossil fuel is permitted, and it will take time before SAF is approved for widespread, full-scale replacement of fossil fuel.

Next is the issue of leveraging the SAF-production process itself. While there are seven approved pathways to effective production, only one, which uses hydrogenated acids and fatty acids to deliver synthetic paraffinic kerosene, is currently available for commercial-scale production.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the availability of feedstocks from which SAF can be derived is currently lacking. Approved feedstocks are in high demand, with prices increasing by the week. Substances that the average consumer might regard as little more than disposable waste, like used cooking oils and animal fats, are key to ensuring long-term SAF availability,

As a result, supply and demand are hardly equal. Currently, only 200,000 tons of SAF are produced annually; the aviation industry consumes over 300,000,000 tons of fuel annually. That aforementioned 747 burns over 75 tons on a single journey from London to New York, alone, while a lighter 787-9 can make the jump with “only” 44. It goes almost without saying that significant production ramp-up is needed to provide for the kind of availability that will fundamentally transform the industry’s carbon intensity for the better.

That’s where companies like Topsoe play a role.

“What’s Topsoe doing about it?”
The technology and catalysts needed to produce high-purity jet fuel, from a variety of renewable sources, already exist. In fact, we’ve been working with them for over ten years; Topsoe’s HydroFlex™ technology can now produce SAF from any commercially available feedstock, the result of our R&D department’s constant efforts to analyze, test, and verify the viability of every option under the sun. A decade’s worth of knowledge and demonstrated expertise in renewable-fuel production has made us the global leader in the field, with producers lending us their trust in pursuit of complex, highly challenging objectives – and finding that trust pays off time after time.

In addition to hydroprocessing of solid and liquid feedstocks, we also possess and license solutions for producing what is, arguably, the final evolution of drop-in fuel: electrofuels, or “eFuels.” By equipping our G2LTM eFuel solutions with electrified Reverse Water-Gas Shift (eRWGS) technology, we facilitate a process whereby jet fuel is produced using nothing more than renewable electricity, water, and CO2.

All that’s needed is the willingness, on the part of producers and governments, to invest in SAF. We’ve already licensed more than ten HydroFlex plants, all of which are expected to begin production within the next five years; from Dutch SkyNRG to Swedish Preem AB, we’re helping producers take real steps in the right direction. But it’s important that all producers recognize the role they can play, and that governments make every effort to incentivize the transition to SAF production. We’ve seen it work in the United States, where biofuel obligations are set to grow steadily over the next decade - and beyond.

“We know the environmental impact of certain key industries – and therefore the potential good that would result from powering them renewably – is simply too great to ignore,” said Fei Chen, Senior Vice President of Clean Fuel & Chemicals Technology at Topsoe. “We also know that the sooner producers invest in SAF production, the sooner the market will be able to mature, and the greater the environmental benefit will be. We’re ready to help make it happen, and we believe a lot of producers are, too. To all of them, we say, ‘Reach out to us, and let’s transform how the world flies.”
source: https://blog.topsoe.com/what-does-it-take-to-decarbonize-aviation?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=203496992&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_rqBi7wMBUDkowoz--0TI2F88cq-jjKowtF00zXcRA3-8seHRcldLHm6AVwzLLVyJEXPPgKijUsj2a-wNtp4f-Qf2OEQ&utm_content=203496992&utm_source=hs_email
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TIP: Google® decarbonizing aviation. One result from the World Economic Forum (https://www.weforum.org)…

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Aviation's flight path to a net-zero future
Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires multi-stakeholder action.
20 Sep 2021
Huibert Vigeveno, Downstream Director, Shell

Cybersecurity risks in aviation: Building a cyber-resilient future
    Aviation connects people and is fundamental to the world economy, but it is responsible for around 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
    Multi-stakeholder cooperation is needed if the industry is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
    A new report (Decarbonising Aviation: Cleared for Take-off (https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/decarbonising-aviation.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=social_organic&utm_content=HV_WEF_link_013_&utm_campaign=decarbonisingaviation__sep-dec_2021)) reveals the views of more than 100 global aviation business leaders on how to decarbonize the sector.

The warnings are clear. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the effects of global warming are widespread and intensifying. When world leaders gather at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in a few weeks’ time, they will have calls for action ringing in their ears.

Of course, it is not just world leaders and governments who must respond – responsibility rests with all of us. But sometimes, especially in harder-to-abate sectors such as aviation, it can seem difficult to see how to turn goodwill into effective action.

That is why Shell and Deloitte have worked together on a series of reports exploring these sectors. Having examined shipping and road freight, our third and most recent report considers aviation. Decarbonising Aviation: Cleared for Take-off is based on the insights of more than 100 aviation leaders, from 68 organisations.

These leaders acknowledged the challenges, particularly around developing future technology: electric planes would seem to require huge batteries; hydrogen-powered aircraft might need fuel tanks four times the size of those on modern jets.

Critically, the experts consulted said the current sector-wide targets need to become more ambitious. Although aviation represents 3% of global emissions today, that could rise to 22% by 2050, as more people fly and other sectors decarbonize more quickly. If other sectors produce less and less greenhouse gas while aviation does nothing, its share of total global emissions will increase.

The report concluded that aviation should have net-zero targets for 2050, with ambitious interim steps for 2030. It outlined 15 solutions to help aviation reduce its net emissions between now and 2030, with a view to reaching net zero by 2050.

Expanding the use of alternative fuel

Perhaps the most significant proposed solution is to greatly expand the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAF is made from plant or animal material, including for example, waste oils. In future it may also be possible to make industrial-scale quantities of synthetic SAF using hydrogen obtained from low-emission sources and carbon dioxide taken from other industrial processes or the air.

In its neat form, SAF has the potential to cut life-cycle emissions from aviation by up to 80%. It can be blended with conventional jet fuel and put in existing aeroplanes, without them needing major design changes. But depending on the technology used, SAF can be up to eight times more expensive than conventional jet fuel. It currently accounts for less than 0.1% of around 300 million tonnes of fuel used every year by commercial airlines.

Closing this cost gap and ensuring more SAF is used will, like so much of the action needed on climate change, require joint effort: within aviation, with other sectors, and with regulatory incentives. When Shell published Cleared for Take-off, it announced its ambition to produce 2 million tonnes of SAF a year by 2025. This would make Shell a leading global producer of SAF. It aligns with Shell’s strategy of accelerating progress towards becoming a provider of net-zero emissions energy products and services.
Incentives to reduce emissions

As Shell and the aviation sector work towards net zero, a particularly influential group can help us: customer power is likely to play an important role in decarbonizing aviation.

The report highlighted how companies – corporations whose employees travel on business and firms that transport cargo – are increasingly willing to pay a green premium for flights that reduce net emissions by using SAF and high-quality offsets. This is because more and more companies are pledging to reduce their emissions. They are signing up in ever increasing numbers to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which requires them to set targets that align with the Paris Agreement.

According to the UN, corporates with net-zero ambitions represent a total annual revenue of $11.4 trillion, more than half the GDP of the US. Airlines can respond to this growing demand with flights that help their customers fulfil their net-zero ambitions, either through SAF, high-quality carbon offsets, or a combination of the two. There are already encouraging signs. When a carbon-neutral cargo flight was introduced between China and Germany recently, it quickly attracted impressive levels of interest.

The demand from business travel could form something of a critical mass in support of decarbonization. Around 200 large corporates, for example, represent a 16% share of global air travel. That is a relatively concentrated group of customers, many of them keen to reduce their emissions. Aviation and its customers can help each other get to net zero. To succeed, they will also need to be supported by regulation. Ideally, this will involve blending mandates that set minimum amounts of SAF to be combined with traditional jet fuel.

The report also found enthusiasm for schemes like California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard, where low-carbon-intensity fuels get credits that can be sold, creating an incentive to use and develop products like SAF.

No one should pretend that decarbonizing aviation will always be easy, but no one should ever give up. I find it wonderful to see the pioneering, can-do spirit of the industry while confronting even the toughest problems – for example the resources and effort going into developing battery electric and hydrogen planes that could one day make zero-emission flight a reality.

For all the challenges, aviation should retain its optimism. It should remember the benefits that the sector brings. In 2019, aviation supported $3.5 trillion (4.1%) of the world’s GDP. During the COVID-19 pandemic, aircraft helped transport vital personal protective equipment and vaccines. The report found that decarbonization was a top-three priority for 90% of the experts consulted. Aviation has goodwill and good solutions. It can answer the calls for action.

Huibert Vigeveno, Downstream Director, Shell

© 2022 World Economic Forum
source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/aviation-flight-path-to-net-zero-future/
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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide

Circular Logic: Sustainability of the Plastic Life Cycle

Haldor Topsoe recently announced, via press release, a partnership with Dow to turn waste plastics into circular plastics.

“Circular plastics” was a new phrase to me, so, naturally, I Googled it.

TIP: Google® what is circular plastic

One result of the search … The World's First 'Infinite' Plastic, an excellent article by Katherine Latham appearing in Future Planet, 11th May 2021.

Excerpts appear below, one of which describes the fundamental concept. Conventional recycling sorts like plastic with like plastic and creates second generation plastic from the like plastics. The problem with this approach is that the second generation plastic is a degraded form of the original. Plus, sorting the plastics in the first place is quite labor intensive.

An alternative is chemical recycling.

Quoting from the article …

“Chemical recycling is an attempt to recycle the unrecyclable. Instead of a system where some plastics are rejected because they are the wrong colour or made of composites, chemical recycling could see all types of plastic fed into an "infinite" recycling system that unmake plastics back into oil, so they can then be used to make plastic again.”

This approach has the potential to create a truly circular process … in other words, circular plastics.

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[ EXCERPTS ]
The world's first 'infinite' plastic
Future Planet
By Katherine Latham
11th May 2021
The way we normally recycle plastics is a downward spiral of waste and degraded materials, but there is another option – turning plastic back into the oil it was made from.
   Instead of a system where some plastics are rejected because they are the wrong colour or made of composites, chemical recycling could see all types of plastic fed into an "infinite" recycling system
This process – known as chemical recycling – has been explored as a viable alternative to conventional recycling for decades. So far, the stumbling block has been the large amount of energy it requires. This, combined with the volatile price of crude oil sometimes makes it cheaper to produce new plastic products than to recycle existing plastic.
Much of the plastic that could be recycled – such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used for bottles and other packaging – ends up in landfill. This is often due to confusion about kerbside recycling or contamination with food or other types of waste.
Other plastics – such as salad bags and other food containers – find their way to landfill because they are made up of a combination of different plastics that can't be easily split apart in a recycling plant. Litter dropped in the street and lightweight plastics left in landfill sites or illegally dumped can be carried by the wind or washed into rivers by the rain, ending up in the ocean.
Chemical recycling is an attempt to recycle the unrecyclable. Instead of a system where some plastics are rejected because they are the wrong colour or made of composites, chemical recycling could see all types of plastic fed into an "infinite" recycling system that unmake plastics back into oil, so they can then be used to make plastic again.
The way plastic is currently recycled is more of a downward spiral than an infinite loop. Plastics are usually recycled mechanically: they are sorted, cleaned, shredded, melted and remoulded. Each time plastic is recycled this way, its quality is degraded. When the plastic is melted, the polymer chains are partially broken down, decreasing its tensile strength and viscosity, making it harder to process. The new, lower grade plastic often becomes unsuitable for use in food packaging and most plastic can be recycled a very limited number of times before it is so degraded it becomes unusable.
The emerging industry of chemical recycling aims to avoid this problem by breaking plastic down into its chemical building blocks, which can then be used for fuels or to reincarnate new plastics.
   In the UK, Mura Technology has begun construction of the world's first commercial-scale plant able to recycle all kinds of plastic
The most versatile version of chemical recycling is "feedstock recycling". Also known as thermal conversion, feedstock recycling is any process that breaks polymers down into simpler molecules using heat.
The process is fairly simple – take a plastic drinks bottle. You put it out with your recycling for collection. It is taken, along with all the other waste, to a sorting facility. There, the rubbish is sorted, either mechanically or by hand, into different kinds of materials and different kinds of plastics.
Your bottle is washed, shredded and packed into a bale ready for transportation to the recycling centre – so far, the same as the conventional process. Then comes the chemical recycling: the plastic that formerly made up your bottle could be taken to a pyrolysis centre where it is melted down. Next it is fed into the pyrolysis reactor where it is heated to extreme temperatures. This process turns the plastic into a gas which is then cooled to condense into an oil-like liquid, and finally distilled into fractions that can be put to different purposes.
Chemical recycling techniques are being trialled across the world. UK-based Recycling Technologies has developed a pyrolysis machine that turns hard-to-recycle plastic such as films, bags and laminated plastics into Plaxx. This liquid hydrocarbon feedstock can be used to make new virgin quality plastic. The first commercial-scale unit was installed in Perth in Scotland in 2020.
The firm Plastic Energy has two commercial-scale pyrolysis plants in Spain and plans to expand into France, the Netherlands and the UK. These plants transform hard-to-recycle plastic waste, such as confectionery wrappers, dry pet food pouches and breakfast cereal bags into substances called "tacoil". This feedstock can be used to make food-grade plastics.
In the US, the chemical company Ineos has become the first to use a technique called depolymerisation on a commercial scale to produce recycled polyethylene, which goes into carrier bags and shrink film. Ineos also has plans to build several new pyrolysis recycling plants.
In the UK, Mura Technology has begun construction of the world's first commercial-scale plant able to recycle all kinds of plastic. The plant can handle mixed plastic, coloured plastic, plastic of all composites, all stages of decay, even plastic contaminated with food or other kinds of waste.
Mura's "hydrothermal" technique is a type of feedstock recycling using water inside the reactor chamber to spread heat evenly throughout. Heated to extreme temperatures but pressurised to prevent evaporation, water becomes "supercritical" – not a solid, liquid, nor gas. It is this use of supercritical water, avoiding the need to heat the chambers from the outside, that Mura says makes the technique inherently scalable.
Once this high-pressure system is depressurised and the waste exits the reactors, the majority of liquid flashes off as vapour. This vapour is cooled in a distillation column and the condensed liquids are separated on a boiling range to produce four hydrocarbon liquids and oils: naphtha, distillate gas oil, heavy gas oil and heavy wax residue, akin to bitumen. These products are then shipped to the petrochemical industry.
As with other feedstock techniques, there is no down-cycling as the polymer bonds can be formed anew, meaning the plastics can be infinitely recycled. With a conversion rate of more than 99%, nearly all the plastic turns into a useful product.
Yet in the past 30 years, chemical recycling has shown serious limits. It is energy-intensive, has faced technical challenges and proved difficult to scale up to industrial levels.
Full text source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210510-how-to-recycle-any-plastic
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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide