Edition Tag: Sulphur 2023-05-31

Bedeschi has been awarded a contract by Tecnicas Reunidas and Wison Engineering for the engineering and supply of new sulphur-handling equipment. Tecnicas Reunidas and Wison Engineering are working in a 70-30 joint venture partnership on the North Field Expansion Project (NFXP) Sulphur Project, which forms part of the overall Qatar North Field Expansion Project. Last year were awarded a $600 million contract to process and export sulphur from the projected expansion of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The new sulphur plant will have the capacity to process an average of 5,000 t/d of molten sulphur.

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

The production of renewable fuels by retrofitting existing refineries and their infrastructure is witnessing exponential growth. The impact on the existing amine, sour water and sulphur recovery units is inevitable. Based on several case studies, Marco van Son, Shashank Gujale and Tammy Chan of Worley Comprimo discuss the various options available to holistically review the sulphur block to determine the impact and mitigation of processing bio-feed.

Worley has been awarded a contract to supply Chemetics’ CORESO2™ technology for a sulphuric acid plant and associated oxygen unit at the Arafura Rare Earths project, sited 135 km north of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory. A greenfield mine will extract and process neodymium and praseodymium to create ultra-strong permanent magnets for a range of applications, such as household electronics and high-performance motors for electric vehicles.

PhosAgro’s shareholders elected a new board of directors during the company’s annual general meeting (AGM), held on 24 March. The new board includes: Viktor Ivanov, Yuriy Krugovykh, Siroj Loikov, Natalia Pashkevich, Mikhail Rybnikov, Alexander Seleznev, Vladimir Trukhachev, Viktor Cherepov, Alexander Sharabaiko and Andrey Sharonov. The AGM also approved the company’s annual report for 2022, which reflected total production of 11.1 million t/a of agrochemical products (up nearly 5% year-on-year); and a one-third increase in investments to develop the company. PhosAgro CEO Mikhail Rybnikov said: “The consistent implementation of our long-term development programme enabled us to increase production last year, and we remained the leader in terms of the total supply of all types of fertilizers to the domestic market and expanded our support in the social sphere considerably. We intend to maintain this momentum of steady development. In 2023, we expect further growth in the production of agrochemical products, to 11.3 million tonnes. Our workforce laid the groundwork for this in January-February, as we increased production of phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid by 22% and 17% year-onyear, respectively, over this period.”

Sulphur production continues to expand in the Middle East and China both from new refineries and major sour gas projects.

The Sulphur Institute (TSI) held its World Sulphur Symposium in Edinburgh from April 25th to 27th.

With the challenges facing the global refining industry, refiners should review their current practices to see how they can stay competitive and continue to thrive in today’s market. This means improving operational efficiencies and producing products at a lower cost, whilst ensuring performance and safety. Brian Visioli of Evonik explores the development of catalyst reuse and how recycled hydroprocessing catalysts can be successfully applied in tail gas treating units to deliver cost and performance gains.

As part of the expansion of the Shah gas plant (SGP) in the United Arab Emirates, a new 12-inch pipeline was designed and commissioned in January 2020. Hassa Al Mulla, Ravi Srinivas and Alsail Al Jaberi of ADNOC Sour Gas highlight the best practices implemented in the newly commissioned liquid sulphur pipeline.

A reader wrote to me recently asking if I had considered the impact of general artificially intelligent systems like ChatGPT on the publishing industry. As a matter of fact I had, but only, somewhat narrowly and selfishly, on how it might impact my own job in the future. But the dramatic shift in AI capabilities that we have seen in the past couple of years is certainly food for thought, and I’ve seen no end of articles predicting the death of the creative industries.