While the events of the past few years have been difficult for Europe on many fronts, including a wholesale realignment of its energy sources with the restriction of access to Russian oil and gas, the effect on Europe’s sulphur production seems likely to be just as profound.
The implementation of WSA technology to recover sulphur as sulphuric acid from lean sulphurous off-gases offers significant environmental benefits. These include waste reduction, resource efficiency and reduced overall CO2 e footprint, while also producing profitable sulphuric acid. By embracing such practices, industries can ensure improved or better consumption and production patterns and foster a more sustainable and responsible future. J. Feddersen and S. S. Johansson of Topsoe illustrate these benefits using three distinct industrial applications where WSA technology provides a smarter way to treat sulphurous off-gases. It is not only waste stream management in the three cases, but also reduced transportation of chemicals, reduced opex and reduced CO2 e footprint.
CITGO Petroleum Corporation has named Dennis Willig as the company’s new Vice President of Refining, where he will oversee operations at the company’s three refineries located in Lake Charles, Louisiana.; Lemont, Illinois; and Corpus Christi, Texas. Willig most recently served as Vice President and General Manager of the Corpus Christi Refinery, and prior to that was the Vice President and General Manager of the Lemont Refinery, where he spent the majority of his 28-year career with CITGO. Replacing Willig as the new Vice President and General Manager Corpus Christi Refinery is Ryan Vining , who spent the last 24 years at the CITGO Lake Charles Refinery, most recently as General Manager Operations, Maintenance and Reliability. Both appointments are effective from February 1st, 2024.
Small quantities of sulphur in a refinery or gas feed can present challenges for conventional large scale sulphur recovery techniques.
Honeywell UOP’s nViro Hydro process provides an alternative solution to conventional hydroprocessing waste treatment. Benefits include creating a new revenue stream and reduced capital outlays, operating expenses and water use.
Arianne Phosphate says that Mark Edinger will be joining the company as an advisor. Edinger is a 15-year veteran of Nutrien Ltd. and its predecessor (Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan) having most recently served as Director of Phosphate Commercial and Product Management Teams, with responsibility for the global marketing of Nutrien’s phosphate product lines.
Following the completion of expansion work on the ultra-sour gas Shah field in May 2023, production has been ramped up. Occidental, which owns 40% of the Shah project and which operates the field in conjunction with ADONC Sour Gas, reported in July that it had achieved record output at Shah, with gross gas sales reaching 722 million scfd in Q2 2023 (equivalent to 1.1 billion scf/d of raw gas, which is 23% H2S and 10% CO 2 ). The expansion has taken processing capacity at Shah to 1.45 billion scf/d and forms part of the UAE’s plans to achieve gas self-sufficiency by the end of the decade. The expansion was conducted by Saipem, who were awarded a $510 million contract in 2021 to expand output from 1.3 billion scf/d to the current 1.45 billion scf/d. Work was completed two months ahead of schedule, according to Occidental.
Comprimo and Ametek now offer the Analyser Air Control Technology (2ACT) Solution to the industry which enables operating companies to control their assets closer to design capacity at higher recovery efficiency and with fewer unscheduled outages.
There is a growing skills gap in the sulphur industry due to the changing nature of the workforce. The traditional ways of doing things are no longer working effectively. Knowledge is lost with retiring subject matter experts (SMEs) and other experienced operations staff leaving a reducing pool of SMEs. In this article a case study reviews how knowledge automation solved the skills gap in a sulphur recovery unit at a major US refinery.
Fluor investigates how SO2 impacts the Claus furnace temperature in an SRU and the ways to mitigate it. This article studies the extent of quenching experienced in the Claus furnace with varying amounts of SO2 in the Claus feed. A case study is presented based on real operating data of a refinery Claus plant with a feed gas cocktail that includes substantial SO2 recovered from a regenerative flue gas desulphurisation unit.