Magazine: Sulphur

Decreasing the carbon intensity of sulphur recovery is one of the many actions that operators can take to help meet their climate ambitions. It is also becoming increasingly rewarding financially because of the rising cost of carbon emissions. In this article, G. Kidambi of Shell Projects & Technology demonstrates the potential to cut the carbon intensity of tail gas treating units by more than 50% through swapping to the latest SCOT ULTRA amine solvent and catalyst technologies.

The processed phosphates market will be a major indicator for price direction for sulphur markets in 2022. A significant downward correction is expected in DAP prices with early signals prices could soften in the February-March period.

As the world looks to a lower carbon future, refineries are having to examine their operating models, and look to, for example, renewable hydrogen production for desulphurisation technologies.

N. A. Hatcher, D. R. Jensen , and P. L. Ott of Optimized Gas Treating Inc. provide a technology overview of ProBot™ – a unit monitoring system developed by OGT to digitalise the sulphur processing assets in a facility in a manner that facilitates knowledge retention, rapid optimisation, and plant troubleshooting. ProBot™ has been built to allow rapid access to a virtual plant platform that provides advice, training and, monitoring to enable more efficient, safe, reliable, and environmentally friendly plant operations.

Import duties on phosphates from Morocco and Russia imposed by the US government in 2021 have compounded a lack of availability of phosphate fertilizer caused by Chinese export restrictions and led to higher prices for US farmers. Are there knock-on effects possible for sulphuric acid demand?

A look at papers presented at CRU’s annual Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid conference, which was once again held virtually, in November 2021.

It’s a slightly dispiriting fact about the sulphur industry that most of its producers don’t really want it. If you’re a refiner or a sour gas producer, you mainly care about the diesel and gasoline or natural gas that you can process and sell, and the sulphur is just the inconvenient component that the law and your customers force you to remove. But at times when sulphur prices, as they have at the start of this January, reach levels as high as $300/t, then the industry standing joke is that sulphur suddenly stops being a by-product or waste product, and starts to become a ‘co-product’ instead.

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

Global demand for oil products has seen strong recovery in 2021, but depressed kerosene demand from the aviation sector continues to be a major barrier to full recovery, according to data and analytics company GlobalData. The company’s analysis of oil product flows suggests that when kerosene is excluded, oil product demand in Q3 2021 had fully recovered compared to the same period in 2019. However, demand for kerosene, mostly used for jet fuel, has hovered at around two thirds of pre-Covid-19 levels throughout the year, and when that is taken into account, total oil product demand was 3% below pre-Covid levels for Q3 2021. Kerosene demand saw the greatest impact from Covid-19 due to restrictions on air travel. While the sector recovered, to an extent, in the second half of 2020, recovery stalled in 2021 due to new waves of infections and restrictions, with new restrictions linked to the Omicron variant likely to have hit demand again in Q4.

Catalytic converters are the heart and hub of sulphuric acid plants. Converter replacement of equipment that has come to the end of its life is an opportunity to make improvements to the performance, productivity, reliability, durability and plant emissions. NORAM discusses design and project execution considerations for SO2 catalytic converter replacement and Chemetics considers the challenges and opportunities of converter retrofits.