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October 2011

The October issue centres on North Africa, with a regional report from Nancy Yamaguchi that highlights the winds of change sweeping the area, as well as a 15 facts feature. Another feature looks at the emergent clean fuels and technology sector, with Gordon Cope offering his thoughts on the viability of renewable fuels versus fossil fuels. AVEVA and S.A.T.E look at software for the industry, and Enersul and Albemarle examine sulfur handling. The issue also covers the processing of gas and heavy fuels.   


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Contents

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World News
Contract awards, project updates, industry latest, news digest, diary dates, mergers and acquisitions.

Winds of change in North Africa
Nancy Yamaguchi, Contributing Editor, provides a briefing on this fascinating area of the world and discusses the hydrocarbon industry in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria.

A pop at the champ
Gordon Cope, Contributing Editor, assesses whether or not renewable transportation fuels are up to the challenge of dethroning fossil fuels.

Close up chemistry
Stephen Harrison, Linde, Germany, examines how gas chromatography-mass spectrometry can be utilised as a tool for forensic analysis.

Snapping emissions
Jannes Goedbloed, FLIR Systems, UK, investigates the smart LDAR techniques that have been utilised in order to help reduce emissions at petrochemical complexes.

Bottom of the barrel: unconventional crudes (part one)
Graham Carruthers, Scott Sayles and D. Mark Routt, KBC Advanced Technologies, USA, outline how unconventional crudes can be selected and utilised with the assistance of crude compatibility prediction processes. The first installment of this two part article focuses on the various sources of unconventional crude.

Beyond the desalter
Brad Mason, Nalco, USA, explains the benefits of effective desalting when handling challenging crudes.

Slimming down sulfur: part two
Alan Kramer, Albemarle, USA, explores the rare earth free solutions to FCC sulfur problems. The second installment of this three part article focuses specifically on the removal of sulfur from coke, as well as the economic implications of using rare earth based solutions.

Building blocks
Eric Harbaugh, Enersul, USA, uncovers the history and origins of sulfur blocking, including modern developments that have altered the methodology and handling of sulfur blocks in contemporary refineries.

From mean to clean
Wolf Koch, Raymond Stenger, James Wasas and Evan Howell, Swapsol Corporation, USA, explain methods of sour gas cleanup.

A water story: part one
Bradley R. Atkinson, Bryan Research and Engineering Inc., USA, and Eric Prim and Naomi Baker, Pilot Energy Solutions LLC, USA, examine the three phases of hydrate formation during a natural gas liquid recovery operation. The first part of this two part article documents the background of hydrate formation in natural gas processing, before creating a model that simulates the behaviour of water in an existing system.

Sieving savings
Sari Aronen, Metso Automation Inc., Finland, examines how efficient molecular sieving can be undertaken with intelligent valves.

Digital distinction
Paul Halpin, AVEVA, UK, argues the value of operations integrity management to refinery owner/operators.

A reflection of reality
Attilio Brighenti and Daniele Cazzin, S.A.T.E. Systems and Advanced Technologies Engineering, Italy, look at how, when and why the simulation of complex process machinery interactions should be undertaken in hydrocarbon processing plants.

15 facts on... North Africa
15 nuggets of information on the North African oil and gas industry and its constituent sectors.


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