Tag: Safety

A new book by leading industry expert Kish Shah looks at all aspects of ammonium nitrate production.

A look at fatal incidents in the ammonia industry over the past two decades.

There is a growing skills gap in the sulphur industry due to the changing nature of the workforce. The traditional ways of doing things are no longer working effectively. Knowledge is lost with retiring subject matter experts (SMEs) and other experienced operations staff leaving a reducing pool of SMEs. In this article a case study reviews how knowledge automation solved the skills gap in a sulphur recovery unit at a major US refinery.

Pipe reactors in ammonium nitrate plants suffer from short lifetimes due to serious corrosion and erosion issues. A new solution from NobelClad could provide a unique opportunity to address the problem faced by licensors and end-users in the pipe reactors of ammonium nitrate plants. The NobelClad solution provides higher safety and reliability standards and less downtime and maintenance leading to an attractive payback time.

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.

Suncor has selected Rich Kruger to be the company’s next president and CEO, effective from April 3rd, according to the company. Kruger will also join the Suncor board of directors. The announcement follows a search process conducted by a special committee of the board. Rich Kruger previously worked for ExxonMobil for 39 years, and was the chairman and CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd from 2013 through 2019 before retiring from the company, where he focused on safety, reliability and operational excellence. Kris Smith, who has been interim CEO since July 2022, will work with Kruger to ensure a smooth transition before assuming the role of Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, at the conclusion of Suncor’s annual general meeting on May 9, 2023. Alister Cowan, the current CFO, plans to retire but has offered to remain with the company through the end of the year to support the transition to Mr. Smith and to provide advisory services. Smith replaced previous CEO Mark Little, who resigned in July 2022 following investor pressure after a series of safety incidents and fatalities.

The steam methane reformer is at the heart of most world-scale synthesis gas plants for ammonia, methanol or hydrogen production, and its optimum performance will maximise plant production and efficiency. This article studies the wide variety of parameters that need to be considered if a steam methane reformer is optimised.

Safety in sulphuric acid plants is a well-known and widely discussed topic. Industry turnover is a reality, and keeping new employees informed of hydrogen safety procedures is key to keeping plants fully operational and incident free. Walter Weiss of Elessent Clean Technologies discusses the steps facilities need to take to prevent hydrogen incidents.

The world has seen a number of hydrogen explosions in double absorption plants mostly in the intermediate absorption tower (IAT). To review this increase and to determine the causes, an International Hydrogen Safety Workgroup was formed including major acid plant contractors, major acid producers, and consultants in the sulphuric acid arena. Workgroup member Rick Davis of Davis & Associates Consulting explores some of the findings.

Sulphur run-down lines are typically sized by referencing past projects and ‘rules of thumb’. Very little analysis is performed to identify the impacts of slope, fittings, valves, etc. It is critical to maintain an open vapour path from the condenser to the sealing device. CSI has observed problems in the field which appear to be caused by undersized run-down lines. CSI developed a method of predicting the liquid level in a run-down line that considers the most common elements. This was accomplished by building a full-scale model of a run-down line that evaluated pipe NPS, pipe slope, rod-out-cross elbows, rod-out cross elevation drops, and liquid viscosity. This article* presents the testing and development of the predictive method as well as the predictive method itself.