Honeywell Advanced Burner Technology selected by Sinopec Yanshan to help meet new environmental regulations

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell UOP has announced that its Callidus low-nitrogen oxides (NOx) burner technology has been selected by Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (Yanshan) to help meet China's new NOx emission regulations, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

More than 400 burners used in Yanshan's ethylene process units have been revamped and achieved reductions of 40 to 50 percent of NOx emissions from ethylene furnaces. In addition, Honeywell UOP is providing these process units with engineering, performance verification testing, burner fabrication and service.

Under new government standards in China, emissions of nitrogen oxides from industry furnaces are required to drop from 150 to less than 100 milligrams per cubic meter this year. These pollutants are the primary cause of acid rain and increased surface ozone concentration, which have serious and direct impacts on public health and the environment.

"Our record of project experience around the globe can help Sinopec comply with new environmental regulations and gain economic value by improving their return on investment without sacrificing performance or the environment," said Henry Liu, vice president and general manager, Honeywell UOP China. "Since we opened a new research and test facility in China in 2015, we have developed low-emission and energy efficient combustion technology for customers in China and across Asia."

Among the technologies Honeywell UOP developed to meet new emissions standards are high-performance low-NOx Callidus process burners. These burners are designed to meet NOx reduction requirements for fired heaters in refinery and petrochemical plants, where space is limited and temperatures typically reach 1200 degrees Celsius. Callidus burners can be customized to meet requirements of all types of applications, including refinery heaters, reformers, ethylene crackers, coker units, and CCR (continuous catalytic reforming) and propane dehydrogenation process heaters.

As a subsidiary of Sinopec Group, Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. processes more than 10 million tons of crude oil and produces more than 800,000 tons of ethylene products annually. The company was established in 1970 and operates one of China's first modern, large-scale integrated refining and petrochemical complexes.

As MRC informed previously, in 2013, Sinopec Maoming Co. selected Honeywell to rejuvenate and improve the operational performance of aging petrochemical plants in China’s Guangdong Province. Honeywell said then its Profit Suite R400 process optimization software would be deployed at two of Maoming’s ethylene crackers, "helping to improve plant performance by increasing energy efficiency, improving flexibility of its operations, and maximizing the plants’ yield of high-value products." The two plants have been operating for more than 50 years and currently produce 1-million t/y of petrochemicals, Honeywell noted.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - BP's profits more than doubled in 2017 to USD6.2 billion powered by higher prices and output of oil and gas, allowing the company to resume share buybacks as it recovers from a three-year downturn, as per Reuters.

The London-listed company saw one of the strongest output increases in its history last year, lifting production to levels not seen since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. Production is set to continue growing into the end of the decade thanks to more field start-ups this year.

BP would generate profits in 2018 at an oil price of USD50 a barrel, Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary told Reuters, as years of spending cuts kicked in and as it slowly shakes off a USD65 billion bill for penalties and clean-up costs of the 2010 spill.

BP was the first among its European peers to resume share buybacks in the fourth quarter of 2017 after years dilutive austerity measures in the face of the industry slump. With a 20 percent bounce in oil prices in the last quarter of 2017 to USD61 a barrel, BP had a surplus of cash that allowed it to buy USD343 million worth of shares in the fourth quarter, offsetting the scrip dilution.

BP shares were trading 0.7 percent lower at 1340 GMT, compared with a 2.6 percent decline for the sector. "2017 was one of the strongest years in BP's recent history," Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in a statement.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Covestro, one of the world’s largest polymer companies, has selected Emerson to provide Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to help the chemical manufacturer achieve its goals of minimizing risk and improving uptime at nine high-utilization plants, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

As part of the USd14 million, five-year contract, Emerson will provide remote monitoring and predictive maintenance to help Covestro optimize these manufacturing facilities for improved production, safety and reliability.

The Emerson program is a tenet of Covestro’s comprehensive digitization program called Digital Covestro that considers and implements new Industrial IoT strategies and operating procedures to deliver improved performance and meet defined financial targets. Covestro’s reliability program will leverage strategies, solutions and technologies in Emerson’s Operational Certainty program designed to help manufacturers achieve Top Quartile performance. Emerson data shows that Top Quartile companies spend half as much on maintenance compared to average performers and operate with an additional 15 days of available production each year.

Emerson will remotely monitor and maintain 40 of its DeltaV distributed control systems at Covestro plants in China, the United States and Germany. Remote teams at Emerson’s Innovation Center in Austin, Texas, will monitor and provide best practices-based maintenance strategies for local Emerson teams to implement at each Covestro plant.

“By collaborating with Emerson to stay proactive about plant availability, we can drive toward always-on production and continue to satisfy customers in our high-demand market,” said Klaus Schaefer, chief technical officer, Covestro.

The Emerson-Covestro agreement reflects an emerging business model in industry, where manufacturers rely on a strategic supplier’s software solutions and deep automation expertise to monitor and execute maintenance, equipment health or energy management programs, allowing customers to focus their attention on critical operating functions that drive plant performance.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiyo Vinyl is likely to take its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant off-stream for a maintenance turnaround, next year, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the plant is planned to be shut in early-March 2018. The planned maintenance is expected to be remain in force for around 8 weeks.

Located in Yokkaichi in Japan, the PVC plant has a production capacity of 310,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, Taiyo Vinyl is likely to take off-stream its another PVC plant in Japan for a maintenance turnaround in 2018. Located in Osaka in Japan, the PVC plant has a production capacity of 160,000 mt/year. The plant is planned to be shut in end-June 2018 for a period of about one month. The last shutdown was undertaken by the company in end-June 2017 for about 30 days.

Taiyo Vinyl Corporation, a subsidiary of Tosoh Group, is one of Japan's largest manufacturers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The plant in Chiba is one of the company's key assests, which supplies 50% of its products to the domestic market. The company also produces PVC at the plants in Yokkaichi and Osaka with the annual capacity of 310,000 and 150,000 tonnes, respectively.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The largest U.S. refinery began a planned one-month overhaul on Monday of its key crude oil processing unit, said three sources familiar with plant operations, as per Reuters.

Motiva Enterprises Llc finished shutting down the large crude distillation unit (CDU) at its 603,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas, refinery on Sunday night to start the work on Monday, the sources said. The 325,000 bpd VPS-5 CDU is scheduled to remain shut through February for the overhaul, its first since the unit began full production in 2013. Motiva also took down the coking unit associated with the CDU. The 110,000 bpd DCU-2 coker will be shut through mid-March for a planned overhaul.

Motiva spokeswoman Angela Goodwin confirmed that Motiva began planned maintenance on Monday at the Port Arthur Refinery, but declined to identify the units involved.

Both units were part of a USD10 billion expansion of the Port Arthur Refinery between 2007 and 2012 that more than doubled the plant's capacity to over 600,000 bpd. VPS-5 suffered disastrous piping damage in early June 2012 from chemical corrosion, about six weeks after beginning initial production following construction. The damage required eight months of repairs.

The lengthy shutdown of the marquee crude unit strained what was then a 50-50 partnership between Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Aramco. Aramco became the sole owner of Motiva and the Port Arthur Refinery in a negotiated breakup of the partnership on May 1, 2017. The Motiva Port Arthur Refinery accounts for 3 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

Most refinery units are shut for a full overhaul about every five years. VPS-5 is the largest of three CDUs at the Port Arthur Refinery. The other two remain in operation. The CDUs do the primary refining of crude oil and supply hydrocarbon feedstock for all other units. The coker converts residual crude from VPS-5 into motor fuel feedstock and petroleum coke, which can be used as a coal substitute.
MRC