HPIN BRIEF BILLY THINNES, NEWS EDITOR
BT@HydrocarbonProcessing.com
Qatargas recently honored two contractors involved with the Laffan refinery project located in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. GS Engineering & Construction and Daewoo Engineering & Construction were recognized for maintaining an excellent safety record throughout the refinery’s construction period. “We are thankful to the management, staff and all the workers of GS Engineering & Construction, Daewoo Engineering & Construction, and their subcontractors for their excellent safety record. I am very pleased with the safety leadership exhibited by these contractors and their use of effective safety processes which were implemented throughout the entire project. The results were outstanding,” said Faisal M Al Suwaidi, chairman and CEO of Qatargas. During the project, GS and Daewoo (along with their subcontractors) worked more than 31 million man-hours with only one lost-time incident (LTI). Since that incident, more than 23 million man-hours were worked without a further LTI. GS and Daewoo formed a consortium to undertake the engineering, procurement and construction phase of the Laffan refinery after being awarded a contract in May 2005.
Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), recently announced that for every unit of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by the chemical industry, society saves more than two units via the use of chemistry products and technologies provided to other industries and consumers. He pulled this information from a carbon-lifecycle analysis of the chemical industry performed by McKinsey and Company. According to the study, the most significant GHG emissions savings by volume come from items such as building insulation materials, anti-fouling coatings and synthetic textiles.
Excelerate Energy recently completed a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving facility and dockside regasification facility located at the South Jetty facility within the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery approximately 20 miles south of Kuwait City, Kuwait. The facility was designed and constructed by Excelerate under an EPC agreement with the Kuwait National Petroleum Co. (KNPC). Following commissioning activities, the facility entered service on August 27, 2009, and received its first commercial delivery of LNG several days after with the arrival of the conventional LNG carrier Grand Aniva. Since the commissioning, there have been three complete LNG vessel transfers onto the energy bridge regasification vessel Explorer. At the Mina Al-Ahmadi gas port, the company’s energy-bridge vessel Explorer is docked alongside a newly constructed jetty where it is connected to the onshore facility and feeding natural gas directly into Kuwait’s gas distribution network. LNG cargoes are supplied to the Explorer via traditional LNG carriers (LNGCs) utilizing a fixed cryogenic ship-to-ship transfer system with LNG transfer rates between the LNGC and the EBRV in excess of 5,000 m3/hour through two cryogenic liquid transfer arms.
Darling International Inc. has joined with a subsidiary of Valero Energy Corp. to discuss forming a joint venture to build a facility capable of producing over 10,000 bpd of renewable diesel on a site adjacent to Valero’s St. Charles refinery near Norco, Louisiana. The proposed facility would principally convert waste grease—supplied by Darling—and other feedstocks that become economically and commercially viable into renewable diesel. Darling and Valero will jointly seek a loan guarantee for the proposed joint venture from the US Department of Energy under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which makes $8.5 billion of debt financing guarantees available for projects that employ innovative energy efficiency technologies. HP
■ Oil demand up in 2010 Global oil demand will grow next year for the first time since 2007, says a recent report from IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA). The group also projects demand returning to its pre-recession levels by 2012. IHS CERA sees a five-year turnaround scenario, pegging oil demand growth at 900,000 bpd in 2010 and, then, the big news of the report, a return to its 2007 high of 86.5 million bpd by 2012. “Oil demand dropped by 2.8 million bpd from its high point of 86.5 million bpd in 2007 to 83.8 million bpd in 2009,” IHS CERA says. “The last time that the world experienced such a severe decline in oil consumption was in the early 1980s and it took nine years for demand to return to the 1979 pre-recession high. A five-year turnaround—while still a substantial amount of time—would be swift in comparison.” IHS CERA thinks emerging markets will drive the recovery of oil demand. It expects oil demand to increase from 83.8 million bpd in 2009 to 89.1 million bpd in 2014, with 83% coming from non-OECD countries. The research group expects China alone to account for 1.6 million bpd of cumulative growth, while only 900,000 bpd of growth will come from OECD countries. The miniscule growth numbers from the OECD countries highlight structural changes like “higher fuel efficiency, the displacement of conventional oil with renewable energy sources and a slower pace of growth in transportation fuel consumption.” All of these factors trend toward flat demand in the OECD. HP
HYDROCARBON PROCESSING OCTOBER 2009
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