Emerson Exchange 365

Activity

Jim Cahill
- 13 Sep 2017
Best Practices for Solving Crude and Fuel Blending Challenges Webinar

It used to be that refineries had a fairly constant and predictable supply of crude with similar properties coming in. Blending on the front end with the crudes and on the back end with the fuels produced were optimized for the crude oil properties. ...
Jim Cahill
- 8 Sep 2017
Gaining Experience in the Refining and Petrochemical Industries

The work is ongoing along the Texas & Louisiana gulf coast to come back from the massive flooding from Hurricane Harvey. A MarketWatch article notes that more that 20% of the total U.S. refining capacity was shut down and only slowly now coming back online. And an RBN Energy post highlights the impact on the natural gas liquids (NGL) and petrochemical manufacturers in this region. As a key supplier to these industries...
Jim Cahill
- 17 Aug 2017
2017 AIChE Board of Directors Election

Professional societies are very important in advancing knowledge, standards, peer networks and more. Within our world of manufacturing and automation there are several including the International Society of Automation (ISA) and the Measurement, Control & Automation Association (MCAA) to name but two. There are also numerous engineering societies around the globe focusing on many of the engineering disciplines including...
Jim Cahill
- 7 Aug 2017
Optimized and Flexible Refinery Blending for Current Market Conditions

Refinery blending operations are the “cash registers” since it “ …is the last chance to optimize the final saleable product, as well as the final opportunity to achieve as close to product specifications as possible. ” A recent RBN Energy blog post, The Price You Pay (For Premium Gasoline) – The Widening Price Differential Between Premium And Regular Gasoline , notes the growing cost spread...
Jim Cahill
- 19 May 2017
Improving Refinery Corrosion Monitoring

With the diversification of crude oil types brought about by U.S. shale production, refineries have increased risk for vessel and piping corrosion. Many of the aging refineries also are operating past the design life of some of their plant assets. In a Chemical Processing article, Refineries: Rethink Corrosion Monitoring , Emerson’s Jake Davies describes some of these challenges and ways that wireless corrosion...
Jim Cahill
- 15 Mar 2017
Gaining Insights in Addressing Corrosion and Flaring Challenges

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) Annual Meeting is rapidly approaching—March 19-21 in San Antonio Texas. It is: …the world’s premier refining meeting, assembling key executives, decision-makers, and technical experts from refining businesses, technology providers, contracting and consulting firms, and equipment manufacturers around the world. If you’ll be attending, make...
Jim Cahill
- 5 Jan 2017
Maximize Opportunity Crude Blend Percentages

A recent Hydrocarbon Processing article highlighted the changing financial picture for refiners over the past 24 months: Those margins collapsed this year in a global fuel supply glut, providing an incentive for refiners to undertake the shutdowns necessary for maintenance. Adding pressure to falling margins are increased costs for craft labor such as pipe fitters and ironworkers. One way to address these cost...
Jim Cahill
- 12 Dec 2016
Improved Refinery Performance via Direct to Ship Blending

For refineries, blending operations can be challenging due to unscheduled downtime, off-spec production requiring reblending operations and quality giveaways by exceeding specifications. I caught up with Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo who noted that poor r...
Jim Cahill
- 30 Sep 2016
Flexible and Optimized Refining and Petrochemical Operations

Petrochemical producers and refiners are having to adjust to big changes over the last couple of years. With the large supply of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) from shale combined with the opening of U.S. oil exports and new LNG exports, prices and supply chains are being affected dramatically. At this week’s Operational Excellence in Refining and Petrochemicals conference in Houston, Emerson’s...
Jim Cahill
- 28 Sep 2016
Petrochemical and Refining Sessions at the Emerson Exchange Conference

The list of workshops, short course, plenary sessions, exhibits and more at the October 24-28 Emerson Exchange conference can be overwhelming. If you’ve already registered, the MyExchange tool can help you find, plan and schedule the sessions you’d like to attend. If you haven’t registered or are considering whether or not to attend, you can use the search tool and filter by industry, job function...
Jim Cahill
- 23 Aug 2016
Optimizing Opportunity Crudes in Refining Operations

An Environmental Leader article, How Data Analytics is Changing the Oil & Gas Industry , highlights challenges in refining opportunity crudes: Opportunity crudes, such as heavy oil produced from the Canadian oil sands, and light tight oils produc...
Jim Cahill
- 19 Aug 2016
Minimizing Valuable Octane Giveaway

With many of the hydrocarbons falling in price, one exception has been octane (C 8 H 18 ). Its structure comes in many forms or isomers—18 according to its Wikipedia entry . These octanes are : …a family of hydrocarbon that are typical components of gasoline. They are colorless liquids that boil around 125 °C (260 °F). One member of the octane family, isooctane is used as a reference standard to benchmark the tendency...
Jim Cahill
- 25 Jul 2016
Improve It Turnaround Mindset

The mindset in most plant and production facility turnarounds is to get things fixed as fast as possible in order to get the facility back on line. At the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) Annual Meeting earlier this year, Emerso...
Jim Cahill
- 6 Jul 2016
Automation Addresses Opportunity Crudes Refining Challenges

The abundance of discounted crude oil, or opportunity crudes , as they are known in refinery parlance, has shifted refinery operators’ mindsets over the past few years. In a Hydrocarbon Engineering article, Equip for Opportunity Crudes , Emerson&...
Jim Cahill
- 20 Jun 2016
Better Handling Opportunity Crudes in Refineries

We’ve discussed in earlier posts how opportunity crudes , while reducing feedstock costs, increase the complexity of operating a refinery. At a monthly meeting of the South Texas section of the AIChE , Emerson’s Tim Olsen presented The New ...
Jim Cahill
- 23 May 2016
Wireless and Non-Intrusive Sensing Technologies for RefineryTop Quartile Performance

Technology changes come at so quickly, it is something difficult to process how they can be used to help us improve performance. In our world of process automation, these changes must be proven over time before being put into widespread use. For exam...
Jim Cahill
- 11 May 2016
Important Opportunities Today in Refineries and Petrochemical Plants

This article was first published in the Spanish language— La actualidad del mercado de hidrocarburos ofrece importantes oportunidades en refinerías y petroquímicas in Instrumentacion y Control magazine and is translated and posted with permission from the publisher. Since 2014, the hydrocarbon industry has felt what the economic impact overabundance of crudes and sharp drop in world prices has meant. This situation...
Jim Cahill
- 9 May 2016
Improving Refinery Operations with Wireless Measurements

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers annual meeting took place this past March in San Francisco. In a Hydrocarbon Processing magazine recap of day 3 from the conference, Emerson’s Ed Schodowski shared ways to improve refinery per...
Jim Cahill
- 4 Apr 2016
Improve Gasoline Blending to Achieve EPA Tier 3 Regulations

For U.S. refineries that produce more than 75M barrels per day, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tier 3 regulations , which mandate reduced gasoline sulfur content, come into effect in 2017. For smaller refineries, these regulations take effect in 2020. In a Hydrocarbon Processing article, Meet EPA Tier 3 clean fuel regulations through improved blending processes , Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo and Patrick...
Jim Cahill
- 14 Jan 2016
Improving Refinery Performance through Alarm Management

Alarms in the process are a normal part of life for plant operators. But, when improperly designed and implemented, they can be more of a nuisance, and potentially mask abnormal situations when they come flooding in. Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo shared an article with me that was published several years ago in Hydrocarbon Engineering magazine. The article, No Cause for Alarm , highlights the journey of an Ergon...
Jim Cahill
- 1 Dec 2015
Managing the DCS Asset Lifecycle

The AFPM [American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers] is: …a trade association representing high-tech American manufacturers of virtually the entire U.S. supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, other fuels and home heating oil, as well as ...
Jim Cahill
- 12 Nov 2015
Secure Out of the Box Myth-Part 1

Last month, a full day was devoted to the issues and practices around cybersecurity at the AFPM (American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers) 2015 Q&A and Technology Forum . Emerson’s Neil Peterson was one of the presenters. His presentation, The Myth of “Secure Out of the Box”, explored the expectation of process manufacturers and producers to have their automation vendors: …supply their...
Jim Cahill
- 9 Nov 2015
Business Results Optimizing Delayed Coker Operations

In an earlier post, Optimizing Delayed Coker Operations with Advanced Process Control , we shared the story of optimizing a refinery’s delayed coker process. At the Emerson Exchange conference in Denver last month, John Ward and James Beall teamed up to provide more detail and results from this advanced process control (APC) project success. This process had numerous unmeasured and unquantified disturbances...
Jim Cahill
- 2 Nov 2015
Increasing Refinery Flexibility to Handle Wide-Ranging Feedstocks

The complexity in crude oil refining has grown due to many factors including mix of crude oil feedstocks, government regulations, and increasingly global customer base for refined product. In a Hydrocarbon Processing article, Improve refinery flexibi...
Jim Cahill
- 23 Sep 2015
Analyzing and Recommending Improved Refinery Blending Operations

For refiners challenged with increasing regulations, blending operations are a major area where automation investments can help meet these regulations and improve operational performance. Emerson’s Marcelo Carugo , who leads the refining and pet...