Conference Alert: Singapore International Energy Week

“OCTOBER: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in the stock market. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.” – Mark Twain in “Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar”

The 9th Annual SIEW 2016 (https://www.siew.sg/) is coming up soon … 24-28 October, to be precise.

TIP: Google® Singapore International Energy Week to see what events, speakers, and sponsors have appeared in previous years.  This will help you decide whether to attend the 2016 event.

Here is some information from the 2016 Singapore International Energy Week Web site.

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About the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW)
The 9th Annual SIEW 2016 (https://www.siew.sg/) is an annual week-long platform organised by Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) for energy professionals, policymakers and commentators to discuss and share best practices and solutions within the global energy space.
When: 26th & 27th October 2016
Where: Orchid Main Ballroom, Level 4 - Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore
Conference Hours: 9.00am to 18.00pm
Exhibition Hours: 26 Oct 2016 - 10.00am to 5.30pm
                                27 Oct 2016 - 10.00am to 4.30pm
Meet the experts from both Refinery as well as the Catalyst business as they present DODIFLOW and DODIWAX products.
A combined paper from Refinery and Catalyst will be held, showing in detail the economical advantages by processing opportunity crudes. To process this challenging crude types, Clariant had to develop several products, such as Pour Point depressants for transport of opportunity crudes, Cold Flow Improver-Booster systems and Dewaxing Technologies to optimize diesel production.
It will be demonstrated that a complete and regular treatment of these high waxy crudes enables refineries to operate more flexible and profitable. Meet them for a cold drink or coffee at Booth B1
HP30 – Optimize your refinery process and increase profitability. Measurement made easy with HP30
The new HP30 hydrogen process analyzer intended for installation and use in refinery and petrochemical plant environments for the monitoring of hydrogen recycle and hydrogen make-up process streams. The HP30 embodies the ABB “Measurement made easy” design philosophy by providing a simple to install plug and play analyzer with built in sample conditioning and pressure regulation so that it can be directly connected to the process. This analyzer delivers a fast and reliable hydrogen concentration measurements in the following unit operations; catalytic reformer, hydrocracker, isomerization unit, butamer off-gas, hydrotreater and fuel gas production. The ABB HP30 is the ideal solution for on-line process hydrogen concentration measurement. Meet them at Booth B8
Turnaround tools and services allow companies to take advantage of a vast repository of Industry research and data to adopt proven best practices into their work processes.
AP-Networks’ online NaviTrack tool gives organizations the power to achieve rapid work process deployment, effective process integration, and ongoing process maintenance and benchmarking. The NaviTrack tool is housed within AP-Networks’ online portals—the Turnaround Network, the Capital Project Network, and the Upstream Network—which contain a full suite of project and turnaround management tools. Meet them at Booth A4
Demonstrations of all (4) software products: 1.Flowers: refinery scheduling platform and smart simulation engine
2.Compass: for optimised crude blending and crude events sequencing  (unique in the market)
3.Optimix: is the multiperiod multiblend Optimisation system for final products
4.PrincepsLP : Generic planning system, within the flowers platform
Princeps is the only software provider to offer a fully integrated refinery scheduling solution, comprising a simulation-based refinery wide scheduling system together with 2 optimization modules at both ends, within the same and unique platform, sharing the same GUI, Database.
They will showcase this solution, together with their planning system which also shares the same GUI and is part of the platform. Meet them at Booth C3
Production of high purity MoO3 and high purity V2O5 from spent catalyst.
Molybdenum based catalysts are used in oil refineries as desulfurizing catalyst to improve the quality of oil and to remove sulfur that causes air pollution. The desulfurization catalysts lose its activities because of poisoned by the nickel and vanadium in crude oil, and it is discharged as spent catalysts. Taiyo Koko collects them for molybdenum and vanadium raw materials.
Spent catalysts are roasted with sodium carbonate to change molybdenum carbonate and vanadium carbonate for dissolving into water. These liquid mixtures are separated and purified to a high purity molybdenum and vanadium. These high purity molybdenum and vanadium can use for catalysts and metal raw materials. Meet them at Booth A3
ZymeFlow® Decon Technology will be showcasing several case studies including a full petrochemical plant turnaround completed in 30 days. In addition, an animation will be displayed to demonstrate how towers only need 8-12 hours of treatment to prepare them for entry and hot work. The process simultaneously eliminates residual oil, LEL, benzene, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), and pyrophoric iron sulfide.
ZymeFlow Decon Technology is the global leader in preparing refinery and petrochemical vessels for entry during a turnaround or outage. Personnel will be available to answer any decontamination questions or needs. Meet them at Booth C5
Near-Miss Management (NMM) offers a uniquely developed enterprise risk assessment platform for the energy industry. Headquartered in Philadelphia, USA, the company is an innovative solutions provider. Their flagship product, Dynamic Risk AnalyzerTM (DRA), is proven to improve on-stream efficiency in oil and gas operations, particularly for downstream processes.
Powerful analytics rip through millions of data points to identify developing risks at very early stages and enable operating teams to avoid unexpected failures and shutdowns. Described as 'disruptive innovation’ by customers, NMM’s patented methods have been developed through extensive research in solving recurring challenges faced by the process industry. Meet them at Booth C4
One of the largest injection moulding plastics manufacturer in Malaysia and Indonesia, MSPI is well regarded as  the market leader in plastic pallets under “MS” brand and supplying to customers worldwide.
They will be introducing plastic pallet rental or plastic pallet pooling concept which can help companies and consumers at large to better reduce the cost of doing business and hence improve the efficiency and contribute to the green environment concept as well as enable each and every partner to do our part to drastically reduce the Carbon Footprint and make our world a better and more sustainable place for years to come. Meet them at Booth C6
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Hydrocarbon Engineering’s Latest

“The average politician goes through a sentence like a man exploring a disused mine shaft-blind, groping, timorous and in imminent danger of cracking his shins on a subordinate clause or a nasty bit of subjunctive.” -- Robertson Davies (Canadian Journalist and Author. 1913-1995)

An email in my inbox alerted me to the latest issue of Hydrocarbon Engineering (http://www.energyglobal.com/magazines/latestissue/hydrocarbon-engineering.aspx).  September’s issue features an article by authors affiliated with SAMREF …

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Hydrocarbon Engineering
September 2016
Cracking the catalyst code
Abdullah T. Al-Raddadi, Sivaprasad P. Pacheeri and Abdallah S. Al-Yasi, SAMREF, Saudi Arabia, and Ankit Apoorv, Carl Keeley, Stefano Riva and Vasilis Komvokis, BASF, Refining Catalysts, explore how an improved fluid catalytic cracking unit's product yield structure and operating flexibility, using a new resid catalyst, resulted in economic advantages for Saudi Arabia's SAMREF.
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TIP #1: Google® the title CRACKING THE CATALYST CODE. Browsing the results, you will find, among other things …

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Cracking the code: How advanced catalysts enhance hydrocracking processes, showing that profits can be advanced by platinum group metals recovery and refining
Digital Refining (ePTQ) December 2012
Kevin M Beirne, Sabin Metal Corporation
It is now more than seven decades since the practical introduction of large-scale catalytic cracking for the processing of crude oil. The technology has advanced significantly since then (it was first developed in Germany circa 1915 to provide coal-based liquid fuels), according to a recent article1 by Russell Heinen, a director at INS Chemical. Catalytic cracking of crude oil led to “an important process breakthrough” (the Houdry process, Figure 1) that “coupled the endothermic cracking reaction with the exothermic reaction of catalyst regeneration in a cyclic, continuous operation,” Heinen added. “Significant developments since the 1940s, however, have made catalytic processes even more important to the modern petroleum refining and petrochemical/chemical processing industries,” he continued. In his article. Heinen cited the global value of process catalysts as a $13 billion business, with resultant products produced with the aid of catalysts valued at $500–600 billion.

 Development of modern hydrocracking
 However, it was not until the early 19605 that “modern” hydrocracking became even more cost effective for many practical processing applications. This was because of the introduction of zeolite-based catalysts, which offered significantly better performance than previous catalysts, including lower pressure operation that helps lower costs of building and operating hydrocrackers, according to Heinen. As would be expected, concurrent with production economies and advancements in catalytic cracking over this period, feedstock refiners have continually sought improved catalysts to help speed up processing. lower costs, reduce pollution and produce higher-quality end products from lower-quality feedstock. In addition, as catalyst technologies have become more sophisticated, more beneficial uses for catalysts have also kept up with improvements; namely, uses for catalysts in many new hydrocarbon processing applications as well as for chemical and petrochemical products.

 However, as the Heinen article points out, “petroleum refining...is the source for the largest share of industrial products. Upgrading crude oil technology consists almost entirely of catalytic processes...[with the] largest catalyst segment in terms of value being catalytic cracking”. New catalyst materials being developed are not only geared towards enhanced processing throughput and use of lower-quality feedstocks, but environmental pressures have also “become the major driving forces in catalysis and process design,” Heinen adds.

 As new catalyst developments improve the technology, in part driven by environmental regulation pressures, large-scalehydrocracking has been able to help increase production throughput significantly. Efficiency of scale now makes it possible for a hydrocracking plant to easily produce 100 000 bpd of cleaner distillates from “increasingly difficult feedstocks such as FCC light cycle oil (LCO), heavy vacuum gas oils (HVGO), and heavy coke gas oils (HCGO)”.2 Since there is a direct correlation between economy, lower-quality (more difficult) feedstocks and process steps to produce a variety of end products, improved catalysts have also been a key factor in enhancing profitability. Essentially, today’s sophisticated catalysts have made great strides by allowing lower-grade feedstocks to be used for producing higher-grade distillates, as well as minimising pollution problems through the production of cleaner fuels. In fact, modern catalysts are critical for this process.

 One article2 pointed out that: “Typical hydrocracking feedstocks include heavy atmospheric and vacuum gasoils, and catalytically or thermally cracked gas oils. These products are converted to lower molecular weight products, mainly naphtha or distillates. Sulphur, nitrogen and oxygen removal and olefin saturation occurs simultaneously with the hydrocracking reaction; because of the high reaction temperatures and pressures (in the region of 475°C and 215 bar) more “highly developed catalysts” have been introduced into the hydrocracking process over the past few decades”. The trend indicates that this will continue for some time.

 Essentially, the hydrocracking process removes various feed contaminants (which typically include sulphur and nitrogen along with other unwanted materials) in order to convert low-quality feedstocks into more commercially useful end products. The hydrogenation occurs in fixed hydrotreating catalyst beds to improve hydrocracking ratios and to remove unwanted contaminants. From there, the process continues into reactors containing fixed hydrocracking catalyst beds that dealkylate aromatic rings, open napthene rings and hydrocrack paraffin chains.

 Catalyst design
 The article went on to point out that: “Increased environmental regulations on gasoline and diesel have made hydrocracking an essential process, resulting in ever greater increases in worldwide capacity.” Its authors also stressed the importance of “optimum catalyst design” (to extend catalyst lifecycles by improving reactor operation). This coincides with many catalyst suppliers’ efforts to continually improve their products and offer users “longer cycles, higher throughput, and faster turnarounds, all with minimal capital investment”. Because hydrocracking allows refiners to process lower-grade feedstocks, there has been widespread attention in the catalyst market for development of advanced catalysts to ultimately improve profit margins. In fact, because of these advances, there have been nearly 100 new hydrocracking systems put online around the world in the past 10 years. Many of these “new refineries and refinery expansions are targeting operating capacities of 400 000 bpd or higher,” the article concluded.

 Despite the global recession, there is still significant demand for gasoline and diesel fuels, especially in developing nations. Some estimates put the growth rate in China and India alone at approximately 40% over the next two decades. On the other hand, the demand for less refined products such as fuel oil is declining. This is one reason why many refiners are employing more sophisticated hydrocracking processes with more sophisticated catalyst materials. This trend is likely to continue.

 Catalyst composition
 Modern hydrocracking technology employs complex catalysts composed of one or more platinum group metals (PGMs), including platinum, palladium, ruthenium and rhodium, and occasionally rhenium, gold, silver or other precious metals, depending upon application. Catalyst compositions typically include soluble or insoluble alumina, silica/alumina or zeolites in configurations that include monolithic structures, beads, pellets, powders or extrudates, depending upon application (Figure 2). As a result of a continuous hydrocracking process (generally over a number of years), these catalysts lose their efficacy (mainly because of process contaminants) and must be replaced by “fresh” catalysts. When that occurs, their precious metals content must be recycled (recovered, refined and returned to their owners, either in the form of new metals or dollars) so as to acquire fresh catalysts to start the process over.
source: http://www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000669,Cracking_the_code.html#.V8hdIuT6srw
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TIP #2: Google® SAMREF and browse.  You will find, among other things …

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Samref Clean Fuels Project
Office: Arcadia, Beijing 
Customer: Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd. 
Location: Yanbu, Saudi Arabia 
Timeframe: 2009 – 2015 
SAMREF will undertake modifications to its Yanbu refinery in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to comply with the 2013 mandatory specifications for gasoline with 10 ppm sulphur, 1% benzene and diesel with 50 ppm.  In addition, diesel with 10 ppm of sulphur will be mandatory by 2016.
source: http://www.worleyparsons.com/Projects/Pages/SAMREFCleanFuelsProject2.aspx

SAMREF is an equally owned joint venture between Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) and Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation).
source: SAMREF Corporate Site (http://www.samref.com.sa/)
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Conference Alert: ERTC 21st Annual Meeting

"The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese navigator and explorer, 1480-1521)

The ERTC Annual Meeting (European Refining Technology Conference- http://ertc.events.gtforum.com/ ) is scheduled for November 2016 in Lisbon, Portugal.  If this is a meeting you are interested in attending, you can get a price break by registering before 31 August.

TIP: Visit the ERTC Meeting Web site and click the About button.  There you will have the option to see highlights from the 2015 meeting.  If you like what you see, register early to get the best deal.

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ERTC 21st Annual Meeting
14th-16th November 2016, Lisbon, Portugal
Early Bird Rate-Valid 2 July-31 Aug
The ERTC Annual Meeting (European Refining Technology Conference) is a three day, multi streamed technical conference hosted annually by Global Technology Forum (GTF).
ERTC Annual Meeting is the biggest and best event of the year for the European downstream industry, attracting over 500 professionals from across the globe.
We aim to offer practical solutions and ideas to aid competitiveness at the ERTC 21st Annual Meeting which continues to lead the way as the industry meeting place. The event provides a valuable opportunity to network with industry peers, customers and colleagues as well as to learn how best to overcome the current challenges being faced.
Speakers 2016
Carlos Gomes da Silva
CEO, GALP ENERGIA
Maria Victoria Zingoni
Executive Managing Director Downstream, REPSOL
Srivatsan Iyer
CEO, BRASKEM Europe
Dr Andrea Battiston
Sr. Technical Specialist Hydroprocessing, Albemarle Catalysts Company
Colin Birch
Vice President, IHS Energy Oil Markets, Midstream & Downstream (OMD)
Louis Burns
Global Licensing Manager for Fuels Technologies, ExxonMobil
Kevin Clarke
Chief Revenue Officer, Permasense
Dr Pierre Dechamps
Policy Officer, Directorate General for Research and Innovation
Emiliano Di Giorgio
Sales Manager, Environmental, Haldor Topsøe
Florin Enache
Head of Process Engineering, Petrotel-Lukoil
Tim Fitzgibbon
Senior Expert, McKinsey & Co
Giuseppe Galassini
Technical Manager, Petroval
Dr Oswin Galtier
Account Manager & Business Developer, SP3H
Joseph C. Gentry
Vice President – Technology, R&D, and Engineering, GTC Technology
Maurice Korpelshoek
Technology Marketing Director, CB&I
Graeme Laughland
Principal Process Safety Consultant, ABB
Henrik Rådberg
Refinery Planning & Scheduling Manager, Preem AB
Stephen Wright
Vice President - EMEA Operations, Solomon Associates
Erwin Leitner
Vice President, Dorf Ketal
Gavin Medine
EARC Technology Director of Downstream Chemicals, Baker Hughes
Larissa Perotta
Technologist, Alternative Fuels Technology Group of Axens
Venkata Ramanujam
Technology Process Manager, GTC Technology US
Matthias Scherer
Director Marketing & Business Development, EMEA, GRACE
Volker Schulz
Former CEO, ESSAR UK
Martha Smith
Global Technology Director, ZymeFlow Decon
Philip Thornthwaite
Senior Industry Technical Consultant, NALCO Champion
Albert van den Bosch
Customer Solutions, EPS
Tom Ventham
Senior Technical Service Engineer, Johnson Matthey Process Technologies
Bengt Oldsberg
Executive Director Refining and Marketing, INA
Sneha Verma
Process Speciality Engineer, Fluor
Dr. Peter Bullemer
Senior Partner, Human Centered Solutions, LLP (HCS)
ADVISORY BOARD 2016
Andrea Amoroso
Vice President Process Technology, ENI
Gregory Dolan
CEO, Methanol Institute
Koenraad Herrebout
Head of Technical Assistance, Refining and Petrochemicals, Total
Peter Illyes
Technical Development Petrochemicals, OMV
John Berg
Manager Asset Management, Statoil
Neda Marcec-Rahelic
Technical Director, INA
Dawood Nassif
Advisor and GM, Nogaholding; Board Dir, Bapco & Chairman of the Bapco Major Investments Steering Committee, Nogaholding & Bapco
Adriana Orejas Núñez
Technology and Projects Manager, REPSOL
Rebeca Reguillo Carmona
Senior Scientist, Borealis
Karen Small
Senior Process Chemist, Olefins, INEOS
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Conference Alert: Sulphur 2016

"All of us should treasure John Dillinger's oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Jus lie down on the floor and keep calm." - Robert Anton Wilson (American sci-fi author, b. 1932)

Reminder … Sulphur 2016 (http://www.crugroup.com/events/sulphur/) is coming to London on 10 November 2016.

According to the Conference Web site …

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Now firmly established as the premier industry event for the sulphur and sulphuric acid markets Sulphur 2016 will take place on 7-10 November in London, UK.

Attracting over 500 industry professionals from around the globe the conference offers the opportunity to meet, learn and network.

Each year, the extensive programme covers key market trends, project updates and supply and demand forecasts in the commercial sessions, with presentations from respected industry figures; and high level analysis from CRU’s Sulphur Team.

The two day split stream technical programme showcases the latest technological developments to improve efficiency and compliance, and provides a high-level forum for engineers from the sulphur and sulphuric acid industries to share experience and develop solutions to common operational problems.

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TIP: Purchase presentations from the Sulphur 2015 conference to determine whether to spend the money on attending the 2016 conference.

Again, according to the Conference Web site …

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Missed Sulphur 2015? To purchase the speaker presentations from the Sulphur conference in Paris, please contact us using the details below:
t: +44 (0) 20 7903 2444
e: conferences@crugroup.com
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RESEARCHING THE FUTURE

“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.” -- Abraham Lincoln (American 16th US President (1861-65)

Whether you need a comprehensive literature search, or you just want to monitor the latest developments in your field, consider searching for articles a year ahead of the one you currently occupy.

To illustrate … here are the results of searching Google® Scholar for “desulfurization” in 2016, vs. 2017 …

Google Scholar
desulfurization
Date range: 2016-2016
3780 results

desulfurization
Date range: 2017-2017
6 results

Only 6 results for 2017, but still … they are results that would not be included in search results for 2016.

TIP: Stay on top by searching a year ahead.