The Main Column

In today's rapidly changing energy landscape, refinery transactions have become a focal point of investment discussions. Despite uncertainties surrounding the long-term future of refineries in a transitioning world, many refineries continue to be acquired but at lower values than in the past. This podcast explores trends in refinery transactions, the short- and long-term opportunities for investor...

Maximizing propylene production can offer attractive opportunities to refiners. Refiners with the ability to integrate petrochemical units into existing operations will have a competitive advantage as transportation fuels are forecast to decrease and petrochemicals demand forecasted to significantly increase to 2050.

The oil and gas industry are increasingly relying on chemometrics and Raman spectroscopy to expedite quality assurance, processing and distribution, with predictive modeling playing an important role. This podcast looks at how predictive modeling is helping companies achieve faster turnaround, higher throughput and real-time results for the processes that they are looking to monitor, quantify or b...

In this episode, we spoke with Clinton Johnson, Vice President of Process Engineering at S&B Engineers and Constructors. The conversation covered incentives and penalties shaping the clean energy subsidies landscape, how the IRA tax credits influence ammonia projects and low-emission natural gas and how it compares to renewable natural gas. 

Hydrocarbon Processing spoke with Delbert Grotewold, Renewable Fuels Domain Expert, Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions on the state of today's renewable fuels market, and their potential impact on global refining operations.

In this episode, Hydrocarbon Processing discussed the hydrocarbon processing industry's workforce with Doug Sinitiere, Senior Business Development Manager, Turner Industries. Doug provides his thoughts on key elements in the workforce, including important aspects on those looking into a career in the oil and gas industry, as well as those that may be thinking about pivoting their current oil and g...

Hydrocarbon Processing caught up with Matthias Wyzycki, Global Head of Market Segment-Synchem, BU Catalysts, for Clariant, to discuss the role blue hydrogen has in the energy transition. This discussion includes the pathways to blue hydrogen production, technologies that are facilitating blue hydrogen production, projects and the future of blue hydrogen globally. After listening, to find out more...

The development of hydrogen hubs is intended to be the first step toward the creation of a national network of clean hydrogen producers and customers to facilitate a clean hydrogen economy. Although hydrogen hubs are a significant step toward decarbonization, several items must be considered. This episode examines seven considerations that must be studied by hydrogen hub developers and participant...

With momentum building in the renewable fuels space, refiners are looking to convert their existing facilities to produce renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). However, this is not a simple switch. This podcast details the drivers, strategies, challenges and opportunities for refinery conversions to renewable fuels and SAF.

This episode, by Marcus Brucher, Senior Vice President of Compression, Siemens Energy, discusses the potential of ammonia as a clean energy carrier and the critical role compressors play in its production.

Hydrocarbon Processing sat down with Matt Kirchner, Vice President of Marketing for Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) at the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturer’s Association (AFPM) Summit. This episode dives down into the current FCC catalyst market, challenges facing the refining industry and how catalyst are playing a role in the solution, and where the FCC catalyst market is heading in t...

In this episode, the editors of Hydrocarbon Processing interview Rogan Jones, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, AIS Software, live from the AFPM Summit. The discussion focuses on using operations monitoring and reporting software to increase situational awareness and boost safety in processing plants.

This episode focuses on modern advanced process control (APC) and how it can help personnel and operations increase efficiencies, optimize operations and provide more unit uptime. As described, the latest APC systems are more intuitive and can be adopted by most organizations for enhanced operations management.

Hydrocarbon Processing caught up with Jeff DeWitt, Applications Engineer for Swagelok, to discuss the many facets of gas distribution systems, including new trends, safety, selecting the best regulator(s) and ways asset owners can optimize their internal gas distribution systems.

There is no doubt that shift handovers represent a knowledge-transfer challenge for plant personnel. Knowledge-transfer challenges can be even greater when seasoned workers retire or leave for another organization. However, as this podcast explains, knowledge-transfer challenges are a great opportunity to incorporate digitalization into plant operations, providing workers with numerous benefits.

This podcast looks at several techniques to help guide accident investigation managers and teams, with the ultimate goal of empowering personnel to find the root cause(s) and striving to mitigate repeated incidents.

There are countless challenges involved in the development of a megaproject. One area of particular importance is the facility's fluid systems. This podcast details the strategies that the owner of a $27-B petrochemical megaproject in the Asia-Pacific region used to achieve standardization of tubing and fittings throughout several key fluid system applications.

This episode provides the benefits of optical gas imaging (OGI) cameras in detecting leaks in various areas of petrochemical plants, including improving worker safety and plant efficiency while reducing emissions.

This episode examines the use of digital tools and resources to effectively plan a refinery/plant turnaround, as well as using those digital technologies to better plan maintenance and operations moving forward.

Hydrocarbon Processing spoke with Udo Dengel, Director Membranes and High Performance Polymers, Evonik, on the latest advancements in gas processing membranes technologies.

This episode, adapted from the article of the same in the July issue of Hydrocarbon Processing, explores how cloud-based analytics software is creating the reliability and maintenance teams of the future.

Hydrocarbon Processing sat down with Muhammad Islam, Vice President, Commercial and Technology, S&B Engineers and Constructors to discuss how projects are changing in the energy transition, what project owners/developers need to know about maximizing regulatory credits (e.g., U.S. IRA) and how EPCs can help project owners/developers to select the optimum flow-scheme and technologies for their...

Today's project profile is comprised of various stakeholders, processing technologies and vendors. Developers with little experience in major complex projects must now navigate financing challenges, conflicting EPC approaches and entrenched product retailers. These factors add up to a new project risk profile. This podcast examines three critical areas to managing these new project profile risks:...

Adapted from the July issue of Hydrocarbon Processing, this podcast details the types of carbon capture technologies, phases of deployment and cost-effective ways to make carbon capture and storage projects economically.

Hydrocarbon Processing sat down with Vikas Dhole, General Manager, Sustainability for Aspen Technology to discuss emissions reduction, including how companies can/are monitoring it, how digital technologies can help reduce emissions and real-world examples of companies using digital technologies to reduce plant emissions.