By Rob Absil, Intertek PARC.
Intertek held its “Trends in the Energy Conference 2010” on July 21 in Houston, Texas. At this conference I gave a presentation discussing how refiners have to maximize profits by manufacturing marketable products while dealing with crude oil quality changes and abiding by quality, safety, and environmental regulations set by the industry, state, and federal governments.
While the refiner has a portfolio of processes available to accomplish these goals, technical risks exist that the outcomes will not be as desired when implementing new process technologies. Independent protection layers have to be implemented to reduce these risks. An overview of technical risks in the biodiesel and refining industries and a discussion of the independent protection layer (IPL) concept used in process plant safety field have been provided in a separate paper.
The industry has been using independent pilot plant testing as an IPL to reduce risks of implementing new process technologies. Intertek PARC serves as that IPL and continues to provide independent pilot plant testing services to the global oil & refining and biofuels industries, especially to mitigate risks associated with new feedstocks, such as bitumen, shale oil and biomass-sourced materials.
Intertek PARC offers confidential screening of new process technologies. Fixed bed reactors and batch reactors are available for catalyst evaluations; feedstock analyses are provided by Intertek PARC and its sister laboratories. Furthermore, bulk and surface science techniques provided by Intertek ASA in the Americas and Intertek MSG in Europe can be used to characterize catalyst formulations. These combined services allow for rapid generation of new research leads.
Links in paper:
Presentation links to the Energy Conference webpage
White Paper:
"Risk Mitigation When Implementing New Process Technologies in Refineries and Chemical Plants"
http://www.intertek.com/white-papers/risk-mitigation-in-refining-chemical-plants/
Fixed bed reactors:
http://www.intertek.com/testing/catalyst/heterogeneous-catalyst/
Batch reactors:
http://www.intertek.com/testing/pilot-plant/batch-reactor/
Feedstock analysis:
http://www.intertek.com/petroleum/testing/crude-oil-and-feedstocks/
Intertek ASA links:
http://www.intertek.com/testing/catalyst/heterogeneous-catalyst/
Intertek MSG links:
http://www.intertek.com/testing/catalyst/
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