Emerson Exchange 365

Activity

An Agrichem Blog - Nitrogen+Syngas Conference

jamesgremillion

I had the opportunity to attend the Nitrogen+Syngas conference in Berlin last week. Nitrogen+Syngas is a conference aimed at ammonia, urea, methanol and gas-to-liquids plants. One of the presenters, an executive from an Agrichemicals firm, spoke about the coming collapse of ammonia prices because of overbuilding. Right now, ammonia prices are at record highs and production costs in North America at record lows but,…
- 11 Mar 2013
On a Path to Four Zeros Operational Goals

Jim Cahill

The Industry Forums, scheduled for Monday, October 8, 1:00-2:30pm are always an informative part of the Emerson Exchange technical conference. You can find the industry forum lineup for next week’s conference here. Emerson’s Peter Cox is leading Industrial...
- 3 Oct 2012
The Impact of Shale Gas on Olefins

Jim Cahill

With vast shale gas reserves, will China move from coal-to-chemicals processes to gas-to-chemicals processes going forward? Emerson’s Douglas Morris, a member of the alternative energy industry team explores this question in today’s guest post. We’ve...
- 21 Sep 2012
New Generation Chemical Plants and Gas Chromatography

Jim Cahill

We’ve explored in several posts the impact shale gas is having on the U.S. oil and gas industry. A Processing magazine article, US chemical industry expansion will bring sophisticated technologies mainstream, explores its impact on the chemical industry...
- 5 Jul 2012
AIChE Fuels and Petrochemicals Division Update

Jim Cahill

I caught up with Emerson’s Tim Olsen, Chair of the AIChE Fuels and Petrochemicals Division (F&PD), to get an update of the work of this division. For those unfamiliar with this group, the AIChE’s F&PD: …was established to further the application of chemical...
- 11 Apr 2012
Chemical Manufacturing Moving to Ends of the Spectrum

Jim Cahill

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), a global professional membership organization for people who have an interest in and experience in chemical engineering, triennially holds an event, Advances in Process Control 9 (APC 9). This year’s event...
- 12 Jul 2011
Functional Safety, a SIF-Based Approach, and Burner Management

Jim Cahill

Earlier this week, Emerson’s Chuck Miller and Mike Boudreaux were at the ChemInnovations 2010 conference in Houston, Texas. During this session, presenters talked about topics related to safety and security for instrumentation, automation, and control...
- 21 Oct 2010
Efficiently Cracking Hydrocarbons in Ethylene Furnaces

Jim Cahill

A few weeks ago, I relayed a story from Emerson’s James Beall about a process of ongoing plant control performance improvements on which he’s been working with a process manufacturer. He said he had another great story about an ethylene furnace optimization...
- 2 Jul 2010
Reducing Distillation Column Energy Usage

Jim Cahill

I saw some startling facts in a presentation by Emerson’s Pete Sharpe, whom you may recall from many process optimization-related posts. This week he visited The Automation Group (TAG) office in Houston, to discuss distillation and fired heater optimization...
- 2 Apr 2010
Practical Ways to Save Energy in Your Plant

Jim Cahill

A recent Wall Street Journal article, U.S. Expects Steady Climb in Energy Prices opens: Energy prices are undergoing a long, slow march higher as major economies shake off the effects of last year’s recession, the U.S. Energy Information Administration...
- 15 Jan 2010
Ethylene Process Loss Reduction and Energy Efficiency Improvement

Jim Cahill

Reconciling Mass and Energy Balances in an Ethylene Complex is the name of a presentation recently given by Emerson’s Patrick Truesdale. The venue was the 2009 AIChE annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Patrick is a senior consultant on the Industry...
- 30 Nov 2009