Tag: Construction

Fugitive dust emissions during the handling and storage of formed sulphur can result in negative environmental impacts and under specific conditions result in an explosion hazard. Enersul has developed a dust suppression system specifically targeted at controlling sulphur dust particles. The Enersul SafeFoam Transfer System (STS) reduces sulphur fines at critical transfer points throughout any sulphur handling system, resulting in a significantly safer and more environmentally friendly sulphur handling system.

IPCO provides an update on its latest activities, with flexible processes enabling IPCO’s project for the first drum granulation plant in Europe to remain on track despite unprecedented Covid-19 restrictions.

On June 30th, following clearance from the European Commission, Outotec completed the year-long merger of Metso’s Minerals business with Outotec via a partial demerger of Metso. The newly formed company, Metso Outotec, will focus on leadership in sustainable minerals and metals processing and recycling technologies. Headquartered in Finland, Metso Outotec employs over 15,000 professionals in more than 50 countries and its combined sales for 2019 were e4.2 billion.

US crude production dropped rapidly during April and May, but figures released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that this had plateaued and there have been some well reactivations and drawdowns from crude stocks. Total production curtailments in North America were more than 2.5 million bbl/d in May. ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Ryan Lance said in remarks to the media that a return to pre-outbreak production levels of 13 million bbl/d looked “pretty difficult”, although a recovery to 11 million bbl/d or possibly as high as 12 million bbl/d would be possible, depending upon OPEC moves. About one third of the company’s production was shut in as of the start of June – some 400,000 bbl/d. Lance argued that low cost shale oil resources still exist in the US, but there will be pressure on companies to reduce capital spending. The Covid19 outbreak has had a major impact in investment announcements, with a large number of project delays in the US due to uncertainty over future demand levels. Planned US exploration and production expenditure is down by 50% for the second half of 2020, while the rig count was down 60% on February.

Although amine solution foaming problems have been studied and reported extensively, direct correlations about the root causes of foaming have not been completely established. This article approaches the problems of foaming from a different perspective, rather than theoretical discussions, the topic is centred exclusively on Amine Experts’ field-related experiences with amine foaming episodes.

Sulphur demand in Australia has been boosted by the restart of the nickel leaching plant at Ravensthorpe, and new HPAL projects are under development, but a slew of new phosphate projects are not scheduled to consume more acid domestically.

With increasing frequency, companies that have molten sulphur on site must put environmental controls on the vent streams from molten sulphur pits, storage tanks and loading operations. This article* describes the typical characteristics of molten sulphur vent gas streams as well as some of the important chemistry related to these systems in caustic scrubbers. Solids deposition issues observed in the field with caustic scrubbers operating on actual molten sulphur vent gas streams are presented. Design and operational strategies to mitigate plugging in molten sulphur vent gas scrubbers are also summarised in this article by D. J. Sachde, K. E. McIntush, D. L. Mamrosh , and C. M. Beitler of Trimeric Corporation.

Nitrogen+Syngas asked some of the industry’s leading EPC companies what they are doing to make construction sites safer around the world in pursuit of the goal for zero incident safety performance. Read on to find out what approaches have been taken by Maire Tecnimont Group, thyssenkrupp, Toyo Engineering Corporation and Saipem.

Many fertilizers plants are looking to reduce the overall maintenance costs of their critical heat exchangers. Barinder J. S. Ghai of Sandvik Materials Technology takes a look at the life cycle costs of tube materials for heat exchangers in ammonia plants.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) forward oil prices for May dropped into negative territory during mid-April, on fears of lack of storage capacity to deal with the excess production. Forward prices for June were also nosing to equally unprecedentedly low levels.Elsewhere, Brent Crude spot prices dropped to $20/bbl, a fall of $50/bbl from the start of 2020.