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Industry news
News and events from around the industry.
Lead news
New contract wins for Cansolv’s emissions capture technology
Cansolv Technologies Inc. (Cansolv), an affiliate of Shell Global Solutions International BV, has signed three agreements for its regenerable scrubbing processes. The Mosaic Company (Mosaic) in the USA will use a modular CANSOLV SO2 Scrubbing System to capture sulphur dioxide from the sulphuric acid plant tail gas at its Uncle Sam fertiliser production facility in Louisiana. The system is aimed at helping Mosaic to meet its required sulphur dioxide emission levels.
Downstream
The fall in diesel car sales may have benefits
Across Europe, sales of diesel cars have dropped for the first time in a decade, which suggests that older refiners in the UK and the Middle East with facilities typically focused on petrol refining could benefit. According to figures from the European Automobile manufacturers’ Association, sales fell from 52% of the market in 2008 to 46% of the market in 2009. This drop has been largely attributed to government scrappage schemes that favour sales of smaller city cars, which are typically petrol powered.
Vietnamese refinery seeks international builder
The operators of the Nghi Son project, an $8-billion, 200,000-barrels-a-day refinery 180 km south of Hanoi and planned to be Vietnam’s largest, are putting out an international tender for the construction of the facility. State-owned Petrovietnam is leading the development of the project, which is a joint venture with Kuwait Petroleum International and Idemitsu Kosan of Japan.
Several firms have already expressed interest, including Technip, builder of Vietnam’s first refinery, the 140,000-barrelsa-day Dung Quat plant.
Marathon Oil to cut its downstream spend
Marathon Oil, the USA’s fourth largest oil producer and fifth largest refiner, has expanded its Garyville refinery. Comprising a major expansion and refurbishment of the 34-year-old refinery, the project aims to raise production from 256,000 to 436,000 barrels a day.
Upstream
Deal for $400 million in subsea trees
FMC Technologies, Inc. has announced a framework agreement with Petrobras, the Brazilian state oil company, that it believes could generate up to $400 million if all the orders go ahead. The scope of the contract will include manufacturing as many as 107 subsea trees and related tools, all designed for use off the Brazilian coast in water depths to 2,000 m. Production will be at FMC’s Rio de Janeiro facility and is scheduled to commence in 2012.
First Dubai oil find since 1960s
According to the media office of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai has found a new offshore oil field, though the potential reserves figures have not been given. Dubai is one of the cities worst hit by the recession, so the hope is that this may help restabilise the Emirate’s finances.
Major exploration and production in Egypt
The Egyptian government has committed to spending $3 billion on new wells and exploration schemes in 2010. The Minister of Petroleum, Sameh Fahmi, announced in January 2010 that 556 wells are planned: 520 oil wells and 36 natural gas wells.
Industrial markets
Nanotechnology aids catalyst development
Using state-of-the-art advancements in nanotechnology to optimise the active sites, Criterion Catalysts & Technologies (Criterion) has developed a next-generation catalyst technology known as CENTERA.
Applicable across most of Criterion’s hydroprocessing catalyst portfolio, CENTERA technology can offer the flexibility to help increase run length, process more difficult feedstocks or increase throughput for refiners. The CENTERA ultra-low-sulphur diesel (ULSD) products are providing performance improvements of an up to 14ºC lower start-of-run, weighted-average bed temperature compared with earlier generation products.
Double-digit growth for Chinese petrochemicals
In January 2010, Feng Shili, Deputy Secretary General with the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association, predicted that the Chinese industry will grow substantially in the coming year as the country comes out of recession.
In 2009, China’s petrochemical industry reached a total output value of $970 billion, which was a rise of 0.3% year on year, according to Feng. This figure means the sector accounted for 12.13% of the nation’s industry output value. To fuel this significant industry, the country consumed 388 million tonnes of crude oil, 228 million tonnes of refined oil and 87.45 billion cubic metres of natural gas during 2009.
Canadian forestry must diversify into green energy
A report from the Forest Products Association of Canada suggests that the forestry industry needs to work harder to extract maximum value from each tree felled. The report argues that all the by-products of timber production should be leveraged, with every part of the tree being utilised along with the secondary products of the processing industry.