“Refinery of the Future” Topic at Middle East Technology Forum

by Duane Nichols on February 20, 2020

... more companies are coming around ...

Honeywell UOP to display new refinery concept at forum

From the Trade Arabia News Service, February 12, 2020

Honeywell has unveiled a new “Refinery of the Future” concept, which will be showcased at the annual Middle East Technology Forum for Refining & Petrochemicals (ME-TECH), taking place from February 18-20 in Abu Dhabi.

The concept demonstrates how carefully planned investments in refining operations — including integration with petrochemicals production — can help refiners improve profit margins.

At ME-TECH, Honeywell UOP, a leader in the oil and gas industry, will explain how its “Refinery of the Future” concept can help refiners unlock new value from crude oil, potentially improving net cash margin by almost $30 per barrel.

Honeywell will also showcase the impact of integration between refining and petrochemicals on the oil and gas sector in the Middle East and explain how new production technology is enabling economies of scale that lower the cost of petrochemical production.

“The history of refining crude oil is rooted in the production of fuels, but forward-looking refiners are branching out into petrochemicals to stay competitive and ensure continued profitable growth,” said Hesham Tashkandi, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies, Middle East.

“Changes in market dynamics, combined with advanced technologies in the efficient management of hydrocarbon molecules, are opening up alternative paths to profitability for refiners. With the right retrofit technology and domain expertise, the ‘refinery of the future’ is now within reach.”

Recent projections show that by 2022, the top quartile of refineries by margin will be integrated with petrochemicals. World-scale refineries employing new technologies are being built in regions with growing fuels demand. These new, global, integrated plants will be considerably more resilient to shrinking gasoline and diesel margins and will remain more competitive than much of the current installed base.

A new Honeywell white paper titled ‘Refinery of the Future’ will also debut at ME-TECH, detailing how petrochemical integration requires a strategy that is designed to maximize value at each step and Honeywell UOP technologies provide the right solutions.

Honeywell’s case studies show potential diversification pathways to petrochemicals, which can be completed through a series of economically viable investments in bottom-of-barrel conversion, hydrocracking to naphtha technologies, and an aromatics complex integrated with a Toluene Methylation unit. These technologies enable production of enough heavy naphtha to support profitable world-scale paraxylene production from the same crude rate.

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Ineos, UPM Biofuels reach raw material supply deal, Plastics Today, February 11, 2020

UPM Biofuels has agreed to supply Ineos with UPM BioVerno naphtha, a renewable raw material made in pulp production, to produce bio-attributed polymers in Germany. Ineos will use the feedstocks to produce plastics for various applications, including Ineos business Inovyn’s Biovyn bio-attributed polyvinyl chloride.

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Sustainability, innovation go hand in hand at Covestro, Ethical Corp., February 11, 2020

Sustainability has always been a pillar of Covestro’s operations and is intertwined with every aspect of its innovation, including research and development and business decisions, says executive Rebecca Lucore. Covestro has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions 40% below 2005 levels, is working toward 50% by 2025, and uses events such as the annual Intern Sustainability Challenge to find new solutions that support its sustainability goals.

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Company produces 100% renewable nylon, Forbes, February 11, 2020

Bioengineering company Genomatica has advanced the world’s march away from fossil fuels on a new front, producing a key component of nylon from plant sugars. The key was the use of engineered micro-organisms and a thoroughly renewable fermentation process to turn the sugars into caprolactam, the basic nylon ingredient that’s normally refined from crude oil.

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