Category: Outlook & Reviews

CRU’s Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid 2019 conference was held in Houston last November.

Hydrocarbon contamination of sour water streams feeding sour water strippers is a well-known challenge in the refining and gas processing industry. The source of this challenge is the formation of a stable oil emulsion in an aqueous phase that may contain both H 2 S and NH 3 . The typical approach to the problem involves large residence time tanks with the assumption that droplet settling will occur over a long enough time frame. In practice, droplet settling is very slow due to a variety of reasons, and as a result, operators encounter sour water heat exchanger fouling, stripper fouling, hydrocarbon excursions to sulphur recovery units along with other operating challenges. M. Thundyil, D. Seeger and E. McIntosh of Transcend Solutions present a case study of the TORSEP™ oil and solids removal system for contamination removal from a sour water feed stream. The case study illustrates the effect on heat exchanger fouling along with the effect of the variation of several system parameters on operating performance and economics.

Meena Chauhan , Head of Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for sulphur.

After a poor 2019, when global demand contracted by nearly 2.5%, phosphate markets are expected to rebound in 2020. Saudi Arabia and Morocco dominate new capacity additions while India and Brazil continue to be the key importers. US and Chinese production is in slow decline, meanwhile.

How the processed phosphates market develops over the coming months will be a major factor for the short term outlook for sulphur trends. Improvement is anticipated in the phosphates market from around mid-2020 which may help to support sulphur demand and in turn pricing.

Jerry d’Aquin of ConSul Inc. looks at the impact of falling sulphur prices on the US market.

At the time of writing this editorial, the World Economic Forum was having its usual annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos. Prior to this year’s meeting, as usual the WEF had produced its annual Global Risks Report to serve as a talking point for the meeting. While some of the risks were as usual political and economic, from proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the “retreat from multilateralism” to growing inequalities of wealth in the developed world and “domestic political polarisation”, for the first time in the organisation’s history, the top five global risks in the report ranked by likeliness – which looks at potential global pitfalls over the next 10 years – were environmental. Perhaps with the pictures of Australia’s bush fire season fresh in their minds, the 750 experts ranked extreme weather events as the most likely, but climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainability in agriculture all ranked highly.

Floor prices in nitrogen markets are set by marginal producers high on the cost curve, usually using higher cost feedstocks. Recently, lower coal prices in China and the cost of imported LNG have begun to change the dynamic between producers on the margins.

Dr MP Sukumaran Nair, former Secretary to the Chief Minister and Chairman of the Public Sector Restructuring and Audit Board for the Government of Kerala, provides an update on India’s plans to achieve self-sufficiency in urea production by 2022.

Alistair Wallace , Head of Fertilizer Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for nitrogen.