Texas Colt—a proposed joint venture of Enbridge Inc., Kinder Morgan Inc., and Oiltanking—has submitted an application with the US Maritime Administration to construct and operate a deepwater crude oil export port offshore Freeport, Tex.
My major problem as an operating supervisor when I worked for the former Amoco Oil Co. refinery in Texas City, Tex., was not the people, the process, or the plant’s economics; it was corrosion.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2020, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is set to enact the Annex VI of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL Convention), which lowers the maximum sulfur content of marine fuel oil used in ocean-going vessels from 3.5% to 0.5%.
ExxonMobil Corp. reported the start of drilling of the Haimara-1 exploration well offshore Guyana—the first of two planned wells in January. The Stena Carron drillship is drilling the well, which is 19 miles east of the Pluma-1 discovery in the southeast Stabroek block.
State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) has commissioned a bitumen plant as part of a program designed to modernize and expand operations at the company’s Heydar Aliyev (formerly New Baku) refinery at Baku in Azerbaijan, completing the first phase of the 120,500-b/d refinery’s long-planned modernization project.
Lapa assay from Total Oil Trading SA’s website.
Iran’s oil exports likely will remain at 1.1-1.3 million b/d for the rest of this year despite waivers the US government granted to eight countries after imposing US sanctions on Iranian oil sales, said Sara Vakhshouri, president of SVB Energy International in Washington, DC.
Russia’s Nov. 25 seizure of three Ukrainian patrol vessels and their crews in the Kerch Strait near the Black Sea provided a dramatic reason as speakers at a Nov. 28 discussion at the Atlantic Council in Washington called for more changes in Ukraine’s energy system if the government in Kiev is serious about wanting the country to break free of Russian influence.
Gassco AS is in the process of restarting its Kollsnes gas processing plant and associated Vestprosess condensate pipeline in western Norway after a collision between two ships off the Sture terminal near Bergen early Nov. 8 led to closure of the installations.
The Sture oil terminal in western Norway was shut and evacuated early Nov. 8 after a Maltese oil tanker and a Norwegian military frigate collided in this key North Sea oil port. Rystad Energy anticipates that 365,000 b/d of oil production will be shut in for several days before the terminal is again ready to receive oil piped from offshore fields in the Norwegian North Sea.
As addressed in an earlier article of this series, centrifugal pumps are the most common pumps in a process plant, and an operator’s understanding of how these systems work often will impact how much time, resources, and money a refinery spends. More importantly, however, understanding how to minimize and control cavitation in these systems can prevent catastrophes and save human lives.
A Nov. 12, 2016, fire on a Gulf of Mexico offshore platform, which injured three Wood Group contract employees, broke out when a flammable gas mixture that was released through the thief hatch on the dry oil tank, migrated into the left fire tube, where it contacted either the left fire tube flame or the left burner pilot flame, a US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement investigation concluded.
ExxonMobil Corp. affiliate Esso Exploration & Production Guyana Ltd. encountered 197 ft of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone following the drilling of the Hammerhead-1 well offshore Guyana, proving a new play concept for potential development.
Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal on Aug. 30 declared the regulatory review of Kinder Morgan Inc.’s (KMI) Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion impermissibly flawed, effectively halting work on the crude oil transportation project.
