Tag: Topsoe

A report on CRU’s annual Sulphur+Sulphuric Acid Conference, held in Barcelona, in early November.

Venkat Pattabathula, a member of the AIChE Ammonia Safety Committee, reports on the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE) Safety in Ammonia Plants and Related Facilities Symposium held in San Diego on 8-12 September 2024.

This year will be the 40th Sulphur – now Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid – Conference to be held. From its beginnings in Canada to this year’s meeting at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Barcelona, much has changed, but its mission – to be an essential annual forum for the global sulphur and acid community – remains the same.

Join us at the CRU Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid 2024 Conference and Exhibition in Barcelona, 4-6 November, for a global gathering of the sulphur and sulphuric acid community. Meet leading market and technology experts and producers, network, share knowledge, and learn about market trends and the latest developments in operations, process technology and equipment.

Saudi Aramco has sold another tranche of 1.54 billion shares, amounting to 0.64% of the company’s total ownership. The sale, at 27-29 riyals per share, was oversubscribed by a factor of five, making it more popular than the previous IPO, in 2019, which sold 1.5% of the company’s shares for a total of $29.4 billion. Foreign take up of shares was also higher this time, with more than half of sales to foreign investors, compared to 23% for the 2019 sale. However, it remains relatively small in scale compared to Saudi Arabia’s ambitions as part of its Vision 2030 plan to encourage more foreign direct investment and wean the country off its dependence on oil. Aramco is the world’s largest oil company in terms of both daily crude production and market cap, and remains 82% in the hands of the government and 16% held via the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Over the last six months, climate and geopolitical events have disrupted seaborne trade. A record drought in Panama and the unprecedented intensity of attacks on commercial ships by the Houthi rebels in the Red Sea are straining the freight market. Almost 150 ships have been targeted along the latter trade route since the first attack was registered to a non-commercial ship last year.

The board of Petrobras has approved the resumption of operations at the company’s Araucária Nitrogenados SA (ANSA) site at Araucaria, Parana state. The plant, which has the capacity to produce 475,000 t/a of ammonia and 720,000 t/a of urea, has been idled 2020.

The implementation of WSA technology to recover sulphur as sulphuric acid from lean sulphurous off-gases offers significant environmental benefits. These include waste reduction, resource efficiency and reduced overall CO2 e footprint, while also producing profitable sulphuric acid. By embracing such practices, industries can ensure improved or better consumption and production patterns and foster a more sustainable and responsible future. J. Feddersen and S. S. Johansson of Topsoe illustrate these benefits using three distinct industrial applications where WSA technology provides a smarter way to treat sulphurous off-gases. It is not only waste stream management in the three cases, but also reduced transportation of chemicals, reduced opex and reduced CO2 e footprint.

Qatar construction services company UCC Holding has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kazakh Ministry of Energy for a gas treatment plant at the Kashagan field with a capacity of 6 billion cubic meters as part of the Phase 2B expansion. The memorandum was signed by Minister of Energy Almassadam Satkaliyev and Mohamed Moutaz Al Khayyat, chairman of UCC Holding.

Sasol and Topsoe have appointed Jan Toschka as CEO of the joint venture established by the two companies to develop, build, own and operate sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) ventures and to market the products. Previously Toschka was president of Global Aviation for Shell, responsible for Shell’s global network of operations, joint ventures and sales of fuels, lubricants and sustainable solutions to the aviation industry. During his tenure at Shell, he has led teams across sales, mergers and acquisitions, trading, and retail businesses globally, spanning various industries including Marine and Retail. Toschka will assume his new role as CEO on 1 March 2024 and the joint venture will be launched during the same month. The new company will be headquartered in The Netherlands.