Spark Third Edition

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Spark

SPARK, May 20162

MOPCO

MOPCO specializes in fertilizer production including urea and ammonia. The MOPCO site is located inside the public free zone in Damietta on a 400,000 square meters piece of land zoned for the MOPCO project and itsfuture expansions. From this location it can readily service export markets with urea and has key customers located in North America , Latin America , Europe and Africa (Angola and Mauritius) as well as Austrailia and India.

[email protected]

www.mopco-eg.com

(02) 26731156

Head O�ce: 18 Abdarhman Sedqy St, 6th region, Nasr city, Cairo

Factory: Free region, behind the port, New Damietta

Misr Fertilizers Production company


Spark

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02 | ForewordIbrahim Homos, Chief Executive OfficerAhmed Kishta, President of AIChE.SU

04 | IntervIewEng. Ibrahim Abd El-Salam, Chairman and M.D of UGDC

06 | AdvAnced technologyConsequence Modeling Water flooding Optimization in Saturated Reservoirs

09 | news In brIeFEnergy Consumption around the world Industry ChallengesChapter NewsIndustry News

16 | cAse studyDr. Mohamed Abd El-Aty Ahmed reveals his study to enhance the performance of Ammonia Synthesis CatalystFirst deepwater Mediterranean horizontal payzone drilled successfully 10 days ahead of plan with optimized fluids and modeling PET Resin Manufacturing plant, EIPET

MOPCO

MOPCO specializes in fertilizer production including urea and ammonia. The MOPCO site is located inside the public free zone in Damietta on a 400,000 square meters piece of land zoned for the MOPCO project and itsfuture expansions. From this location it can readily service export markets with urea and has key customers located in North America , Latin America , Europe and Africa (Angola and Mauritius) as well as Austrailia and India.

[email protected]

www.mopco-eg.com

(02) 26731156

Head O�ce: 18 Abdarhman Sedqy St, 6th region, Nasr city, Cairo

Factory: Free region, behind the port, New Damietta

Misr Fertilizers Production company CONTENTS

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SPARK, May 20162

We all share something in common, a desire to be successful, the notion of success differs from one to one, as some may define success as honest and faithful while most of us define success as wealth, prominence and power. We all want to achieve success so that we can live a comfortable life having a financial freedom, etc. However, success can be achieved, it doesn’t come easy. There are a lot of strategies on how to be successful, but let me tell you what I think the most important tip is to set your goal.

Having a clear vision of what you aspire to be in the future is the key factor to achieve any success. Design your life, every detail and don’t walk through your day faltering from wall to wall trying to survive.

Consider areas of your life that you would like to change or develop with time, ask yourself what you would like to achieve in each area of them: career, family, education, etc. Then start to write your goals, make concrete goals for your self to begin with and try to be optimistic and realistic. It’s important to evaluate your current situation and recognize only the realistic goals based on your skills, knowledge, resources and time. This transfers you to a different aspect of personal development. If you have big dreams and unfortunately limited resources, don’t abandon your dreams and let it down, but work on yourself, keep learning and improving. Everyday experience and communication with people around you are all opportunities for growth and development. However remember well, “Try not to be a man of success but rather try to be a man of value.” Being successful isn’t always the hardest thing in the world. It’s equal parts of luck and hard work. But adding value to something is a lot harder, which is why Albert Einstein’s quote is a good reminder if you find yourself blinded by the hunt for success.

Throughout the past two years, We were pushed by a belief to change the technical knowldge and reduce the gap between theoretical study and practical field by publishing a scientific annual magazine. I would like to thank the edi-torial team for their precious efforts working on this issue, they can’t be more proud to see their simple idea of student’s technical magazine into application and SPARK is becoming one of the most widely distributed magazine in Egypt.

Out of belief, a brighter future for oil & gas Industry will come through science. So, we have chosen to give special at-tention to Research and Development as well as case studies, focusing on the challenges research in industry is facing as well as the methods of reducing the gap between academic studies and industry that can put research in practice.

We also took a closer look at the downstream sector investigating Egypt’s refineries and the reasons why they are not utilizing their full capacity. We brought together government authorities, local and foreign players in oil and gas indus-try under one roof to discuss the economic and contractual barriers to oil and gas industry in Egypt. An important event witnessed by indutry in June 2015 was Egypt’s first coal conference which ended with a promise to supply about 90% of Egypt Cement factories with coal power.

In this issue, We have an interview with Eng. Ibrahim Abd El-Salam, it was a great chance to talk with one of the most leading characters in Oil and Gas industry in Egypt, you will read about his journey in oil and gas industry and his expe-rience in this field and how he overcomes troubles in his career.

Last but not least, Your feedback and commentst are always a delight; please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time. We hope you enjoy this issue, find it very informative and thank you for your readership.

Beyond Success

Foreword

Ibrahim HomosEditor-in-Chief


Spark

In a place gathering the highly-ranked students in Egypt named ‘’The Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering’’, you can be sure that if there is a problem, they will solve it. This is what happened in AIChE SU SC three years ago when we started our major in petroleum refining and petrochemicals. We could not overlook the fact that there was a real gap be-tween the oil and gas industry, which undergoes technological updates almost daily, and our academic study which could not catch up with the updates in the industry. Consequently, those highly-ranked smart students tried to make a differ-ence, and they started AIChE Suez.

Of course, there were several problems, namely our lack of experience. But if you have a dream, no one can stop you from achieving it, and therefore our slogan was “let the dream begin”. And it was not just a slogan; it was a lifestyle. Can you guess how many events we organized in our first 50 days as an emerging student activity? Five? Seven? No, they were 20 events. And we continued our journey of success in the following seasons, hosting AIChE’s first conference in Egypt, which received 400 guest students from different Egyptian universities, in addition to a lot of other achievements.

After 3 years of AIChE SU SC what were the benefits to us as students? First of all, we started looking at our study from another perspective. We now know why we are studying these courses, and how theoretical study is applied in the indus-try. This helped us broaden our vision, and highlight some points of interest, where we started a scientific research project. Besides, working in a student activity is a real simulation of professional work, and you learn to be a good team member as it is a hieratical structure. You work with a team and you have a manger, and you learn how to become a leader yourself, too.

Some students even decided to follow different career paths when they learned about Marketing, HR, and others through their work with AIChE SU SC. Spark is a reflection of teamwork, and it was a dream of all AIChErs to have a printed mag-azine. I am now glad to announce that the cooperation among Spark members and the other committees in AIChE is the reason we now have our first printed issue, making one more dream come true.

In a place gathering the highly-ranked students in Egypt named ‘’The Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering’’, you can be sure that if there is a problem, they will solve it. This is what happened in AIChE SU SC three years ago when we started our major in petroleum refining and petrochemicals. We could not overlook the fact that there was a real gap be-tween the oil and gas industry, which undergoes technological updates almost daily, and our academic study which could not catch up with the updates in the industry.

Consequently, those highly-ranked smart students tried to make a difference, and they started AIChE Suez. Of course, there were several problems, namely our lack of experience. But if you have a dream, no one can stop you from achieving it, and therefore our slogan was “let the dream begin”. And it was not just a slogan; it was a lifestyle. Can you guess how many events we organized in our first 50 days as an emerging student activity? Five? Seven? No, they were 20 events. And we continued our journey of success in the following seasons. In the next season, we moved to a high level under our slo-gan” lead your dream” to complete the successful march. In this season more members have joined and more achieve-ments have happened.

With a new and powerful slogan –Believe_To_Achieve- we started this season hoping to make a difference by creating some added value events which would really benefit our colleagues. A new milestone in AIChE’s History as we hold our first petrochemical conference with 500 attendees.

After 3 years of AIChE SU SC what were the benefits to us as students? First of all, we started looking at our study from another perspective. We now know why we are studying these courses, and how theoretical study is applied in the in-dustry. This helped us broaden our vision, and highlighted some points of interest, about which we started a scientific re-search project. Besides, working in a student activity is a real simulation of professional work, and you learn to be a good team member as it is a hieratical structure. You work with a team and you have a manger, and you learn how to become a leader yourself, too.

Let The Dream Begin

Ahmed KishtaChapter President

SPARK, May 20164

first of all, I would like to congratulate you for being chairman and MD of UGDC, Tell us about your carrier story?

I graduated from Cairo University with a bachelor’s de-gree in chemical engineering in June 1982, , then I worked in Cairo University for six months as teaching assistant. After that, I got a job offer from ENPPI, I started working for ENPPI at the beginning of 1984 as an operations engineer. In 1999, I became the manager of operations sector then I took over as ENPPI vice president for operations then E-GAS vice president. When I first became the operations manager at ENPPI, there were about 50 engineers reached 160 when I left. This is what we call experience exchange between generations and it is so effective factor for any successful corporation. I got my experience from Enppi, Enppi was a very big school for engineers during this time. I had been nominated by the petroleum minister for UDGD presiden-cy and by the way I was responsible for UGDC designing during my work for ENPPI and now I’m UGDC president.

Why do you think UGDC is becoming a unique and leading company in EGYPT?

UGDC is classified as one of the top notch plants all over the world in the field of gas derivatives recovery. The clas-sification is based on two factors: applying safety rules and the degree of product recovery. According to GPA (gas processing association), UGDC is in the first or sec-ond place since 2008 in the safety aspect. Another factor is recovery percentage which is 99.8% propane, 99.8% bu-tane and 100% pentane (condensate). This is the highest

recovery ratio all over the world. Propane represents the feed for petrochemical plants to produce polypropylene. Polypropylene is much more valuable than propane. We use Propane and Butane to provide Egypt needs of LPG.

Do you prefer a fresh engineer or experienced engineer to occupy a vacant position?

Actually we prefer to employ a fresh graduate to gain the experience easily and through that we can build a new well qualified generation and as I mentioned before, This is the basis of continuity of any successful corporation. We work on providing well-qualified Egyptian engineers to realize/get around with the new technologies and capable of op-erating modern projects.

UGDC utilize an advanced technology that’s used for the first time in Egypt, To what extent UGDC succeeded in this challenge?

Succeed in this case is not a measurable matter but you have to take into account the performance indicators:

Production plan, Optimization of operation costs which determines the profitability, Industrial accidents and Quality and safety.

We operate the unit very efficiently and achieve the pro-duction plan every year. Also we score the first or second place in safety aspect according to GPA since 2008.

Through the last 5 years Egypt passed a critical time to provide it’s energy demands, what do you think the

UGDC (United Gas Derivatives Company), A joint Venture between British Petroleum, ENI and Gasco. Operating pri-marily in Port Saied to recover valuable derivatives from natural gas, Propane and LPG mainly.

United Gas Derivatives Company was established to receive the gas produced from North Port Said, Ras El Bar and Temsah concessions through the gas treatment plants of El Gamil and Ha’py in order to extract the NGL and produce propane, LPG and Condensates. Originally, The liquid propane is stored in the refrigerated tank at Damietta to be export-ed to the international market through marine vessels. While the LPG and the condensate are pumped to the relevant pipeline network owned by EGPC for local consumption.

Eng. Ibrahim Abd El-Salam: BrighT fuTure awaiTS

egypT’S energy markeT

Interview

Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Eng. Ibrahim Abd El-salam, Chairman and MD of UGDC. In

this success story we are going to share biography of one of the leading characters in Oil and Gas industry.

By: Ibrahim Homos


Sparkreason for this difficult times?

Egypt has been suffering natural gas supply shortages over the last years due to a lack of investment in the coun-try’s upstream sector, political unrest, and a struggling reg-ulatory environment. The Zohr discovery will strengthen the energy balance of Egypt in the long term. The addi-tional supplies will provide relief for Egypt of its current shortages of gas and electricity. This should boost Egypt’s economic growth possibilities in the longer term.

5 years ago, we were an exporting country of natural gas then we became an importer company. This is because we stopped paying the debt to foreign companies that in turn stopped all development work in the production wells. Wells development is necessary to increase produc-tion rates or even keep the recent production rates. Also, Foreigh companies didn’t feel safe to investe in Egypt at that time and preferred to stop any future investment. Recently, Ministry of Petroleum began to pay back the debt to foreign companies and sign a new exploration contracts.

Also, ENI completed the drilling of the third gas well at its giant offshore Zohr gas field in Egypt. The initial esti-mations of the third deepwater well are larger than the first and the second, with estimated reserves of 30tn cu-bic feet. Egyptian as well as Italian companies began to set the design of production lines and processing plants onshore and offshore.

International economy passed a critical time in the last 2 years, how UGDC is affected by this drop?

After three years of relative stability, oil prices have fallen sharply since mid-2014. The effects of this drop on a wide range of energy companies have been material, with many players forced to rethink investments, cost structures, and even business models. And a high degree of uncertainty about where oil prices will go next remains. Will prices bounce back, as history suggests they will?

As you know, LPG price is reduced from about 1000 $ to only 340 $,However UGDC is not affected so much.

What are the current challenges that UGDC face now-adays?

Low oil and gas prices have affected nearly all oil produc-ers over the past years. However, no company is immune.

By implementing the exercise of the low prices you find that the partner tries to reduce investment in order to cope with the low price environment. One of the challenges is to reduce the unit cost. We also have to increase the pro-duction.

We have started to improve our skills, we’ve tried to in-crease production, fist of all. We are improving our safety requirements; safety is number one in our company, be-cause without safety, there is no asset integrity. There is no production. There is nothing in the oil industry without safety. We’ve started to improve our skills in safety, quality, asset integrity, production, loss control, etc

What are UGDC’s plans for the upcoming period in Egypt?

We will definitely focus on Ethane recovery as well as stor-age of Petroleum products at Damietta. As you know, Egypt

imports more than 300,000 ton of Ethylene Glycol which costs Egypt about 300 million Dollar annually. Also, EChEM plans to setup a new plant to produce Ethylene Glycol. So, Ethane Recovery units will be important to provide the raw material for Ethylene Glycol industry as well as PVC indus-try. Without Ethane, PVC industry costs much to convert Methanol into Ethanol then to thylene.

As we have a great area at Damietta, we plan to setup a great storage of petroleum products especially LPG to provide Egypt demands. We need to increase our strategic storage of these products that lies under increasing de-mand. Storage of LPG requires great number of spherical tanks and vast area, so we will use a refrigeration unit that will enable storage of these products in cylindrical tanks with lower costs. This will enable us to import petroleum products with low prices and reduce transportation costs.

Do you support Privatization of Higher Education in Egypt ?

Privatization of higher education raises a fundamental question, does the expansion of private universities means that more individuals are able to go to college and univer-sity, or does it exacerbate already existing inequalities in access? Or both? Do it offer better education systems and better graduates?

Expansion of the higher education system exacerbates wealth inequalities if the upper classes are able to use their financial capital to disproportionately gain access to additional spots in higher education, which occurs when there is unmet demand prior to expansion.

We must differentiate between Credit programs in na-tional universities such as Cairo university, etc. and Private universities such as American University in Cairo and El-Shorouk University, etc.

These credit departments in national universities provide the same educational content and the same teaching staff but with lower number of students. While in Private uni-versities, like AUC and Shorouk University, they provide the lab facilities and better assets but there’s no control on the scientific level of students applying to these colleges.

Expansion of higher education is often facilitated by pri-vate higher education. The tuition dependent private high-er education sector tends to serve students with lower ac-ademic qualifications, and those from more advantaged backgrounds, which would suggest that the expansion of private higher education exacerbates inequalities in access.

There should be a control on the private universities to make sure that graduates are efficient to work in such crit-ical industry.

Finally, What is your advice for students to have a suc-cessful career?

Consider improving skills and aquisition of new skills through graduate schools. Any company hires you as an engineer to add value and increase profitability so never stop learning and always keep in touch with new technolo-goes all over the world. Participate in worksshops and ask your supervisor about whatever you need to learn.

SPARK, May 20166

Eng. Muhamed El-HassanProcess safety engineer at British Pteroleum

Consequence modeling

Before you panic or start wondering whether you’re wasting irretrievable time studying engineering, I’ll tell you, you are not, not at all. Engineering is being implanted into your brain now, you are being fed the basics, the how, and the what. Just be prepared to discover stuff you’ve never heard of in your aca-demic long years, stuff that not entirely new though because you will have studied the basics, known the how and the what in your academic life, it is the application of such knowledge that is a novelty nevertheless.

‘Consequence Modeling’ is one of those instances where you’d find yourself so green about the substance, but since you’re an engineer, a process (or if I may, process safety or chemical - terms that are used interchangeably) engineer, you’ll definitely get yourself around it and would probably thrive as well.

Without further saying I’ll get straight to the point; con-sequence modelling is a member of a bigger family that is called ‘Risk Analysis’ where process safety engineers try to answer 5 questions;

» What can go wrong? Hazard Identification » How bad? Consequence Modelling » How often? Frequency Estimation » So what? Risk Assessment » What do I do? Risk Management

As the second question implies; consequence modelling gives an indication to the severity of a hazard, but what is the hazard in the first place?

The definition of hazard simply is any source that has the potential to harm or cause damage to individuals, proper-ties, equipment, environment, etc. one example would be a corroded vessel that contains flammable hydrocarbons, had it leaked, the consequence of this leakage would be hydrocarbon release to the atmosphere, then as per the figure, the event can develop as one (or more) of the dif-ferent consequences.

Consequence modelling quantifies the severity of any of the identified hazards taking place, and by quantify we’re talking numbers, so words like (bad), (severe) or (quite bad) are classified as qualitative and aren’t accepted in our case.

Then how do we do it? Just follow the steps.1. Source Modelling, Determine the flowrate of the released hydrocarbon or impurity.2. Dispersion Modelling, Assuming no ignition and using flowrate from 1st step, determine the size of the vapour cloud that will form3. Fire Modelling, Assuming immediate igniton and using flowrate from 1st step, determine the size of the fire in terms of ther-mal intensity - usually in kW/m2

4. Blast Modelling, Assuming delayed igniton and using flowrate from 1st step, determine the size of an explosion in terms of overpressure wave intensity - usually in mbar)

How do we do it in the industry?Ideally one would learn the hand calculation from the

many references that are available for the topic, however,

Advanced Technology

‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit’ - Aristotle.

As a graduate of the most elite (and don’t get me wrong; by elite I only mean the highest ranking) engineering col-lege in the whole country - or let’s state it more clearly, as a top ranking graduate of high school I would think that I excelled among my colleagues, that I’d known enough to get myself to where I was. So was my thinking when I graduated from the department of petroleum refining & petrochemical engineering, I then used to believe that

I know enough about refining industry and the like, and how come I don’t if I had studied hard and scored good in my academic life! Truth is mate; I don’t. I wasn’t even close to being what I’d thought I would be, or even had hoped to be.


Spark

Then how do we do it? Just follow the steps.1. Source Modelling, Determine the flowrate of the released hydrocarbon or impurity.2. Dispersion Modelling, Assuming no ignition and using flowrate from 1st step, determine the size of the vapour cloud that will form3. Fire Modelling, Assuming immediate igniton and using flowrate from 1st step, determine the size of the fire in terms of ther-mal intensity - usually in kW/m2

4. Blast Modelling, Assuming delayed igniton and using flowrate from 1st step, determine the size of an explosion in terms of overpressure wave intensity - usually in mbar)

How do we do it in the industry?Ideally one would learn the hand calculation from the

many references that are available for the topic, however,

Plugging this information with in to the software we can model the different scenarios of the release; dispersion, jet fire and explosion. The following table summarizes the results:

Scenario Jet Fire Heat Radiation (12.5

kW/m2)

Blast Flash Fire(300 mbar)

Distance (m) 13 25.5 5.3

when it comes to real work, time and accuracy are intro-duced as parameters then computers would do magic.

There are a number for commercial software packages available in the market, a couple of examples are: DNV PHAST and BP Cirrus.

How do results look like?Contours are plotted to give the feel of the numbers pro-

duced. If we take the figure as an example for a blast model, then

we read that at a distance of 100m the intensity of the pres-sure wave is 0.15 barg (or 150 mbar) which is high enough to kill 10% of the population contained within this perim-eter and is also enough to weaken the steel structures of the buildings within the same perimeter.

At this stage question number two is well answered, and a complete risk analysis would necessitate one to answer the rest of the questions.

SoUrCE MoDEllInG(Determine the flow rate of the released hydrocarbon or

impurity)DISPErSIon MoDEllInG

(Assume no ignition and using flow rate from 1st step, determine the size of the vapour cloud that will form)FIrE MoDEllInG

(Assume immediate ignition and using flow rate from 1st step, determine the size of the fire in terms of thermal intensity - usually in kW/m2)BlaST MoDEllInG

(Assume delayed ignition and using flow rate from 1st step, determine the size of an explosion in terms of over-pressure wave intensity - usually in mbar)

Case StudyA leak from the pipework of a low pressure 200 m3 sep-

arator is to be modelled; the pressure inside the separator is 70 psig at 100 F. The leak diameter is assumed to be 50 mm (assumption is usually based on historical corrosion data).

The above, in addition to the gas composition, are enough pieces of information to calculate the flowrate of the re-lease hydrocarbon. In such case (assuming Methane to be the gas phase hydrocarbon) the peak flowrate through the 50 mm leaking hole is 1.5 kg/s.

SPARK, May 20168

Eng. Mohamed ZahranSenior Reservoir Engineer, Shell

waterflooding Optimization in Saturated reservoirs

Saturated reservoirs as shown in the bottom figure is such reservoirs that have artificial gas cap due to either Gravitational segregation of oil and free gas phases below the bubble point or Injection of gas usually in the high-er structural positions of the reservoir or such reservoirs with initial gas cap. As the reservoir pressure continues to decline below the bubble point, solution gas starts to lib-erate from the oil. At the critical gas saturation, gas starts to move and GOR increases. In some cases with a certain high structure relief, low oil viscosity, low oil velocities, and high permeability; gas migrates upward and forms a secondary gas cap.

Fig. 1: Shape of the oil-injected water down tapped gas

It is very important to shed some light on the challeng-es to manage waterflooding projects in such type of res-ervoirs. Waterflooding designincludes calculation ofthe target pressure, optimum injection and production rates, flood pattern, well spacing, water sourcing and treatment, surveillance plans to maximize the assets values.

Saturated reservoirs under water flooding show a better recovery factors. The ultimate recovery factor depends on the volumetric displacement efficiency, microscopic prop-erties, and the ability to build the reservoir pressure. In unfavorable situation with partial water drive, the voidage is faster than the water influx. That harms the ultimate re-covery factor as it leads to more gas liberation and higher produced GOR. Loss of solution gas increases the oil vis-cosity,decreases the oil formation volume factor, and con-sumes the reservoir energy.In such situations the ultimate recovery factor is sensitive to the production rates.

A lot of work has been done in the area of optimizing the production and injection rates to maximize the net pres-ent value. Asheim developed a method using an areal two

It is of increasing necessity to produce oil and gas fields more efficiently and economically because of the ever-increas-ing demand for petroleum worldwide. Since most of the significant oil fields are mature fields and number of new discoveries per year is decreasing, the use of secondary recovery processes is becoming more and more imperative. Water flooding is one of the most widely used secondary recovery means of the production after primary depletion

energy has been exhausted.

phase reservoir simulator to calculate the net present val-ue of a waterflooding scheme. He was able to achieve im-proved sweep efficiency and delayed water breakthrough by dynamic control of the well flow rates. For the reservoir models he considered, there was a net present value im-provement of up to 11%.

Brouwer and Jansen studied the smart completion along with rate and pressure optimization. They concluded that the benefit of smart wells under pressure constrained op-erating condition was mainly the reduced amount of water production rather than increased oil production. On the other hand, wells operating under rate constraints gave an increased production and ultimate recovery as well as reduced water production. Their results show that water breakthrough is delayed from 253 days for the base case to 658 days for the optimized case. The bottom figure depicts their results just before breakthrough for both the base case and the optimized case. It can be observed that the sweep of the low permeability region is much better for the optimized case, thereby improving the ultimate recovery.

Saturated reservoirs under water flooding show a better recovery factors. The ultimate recovery factor depends on the volumetric displacement efficiency, microscopic prop-erties, and the ability to build the reservoir pressure. In un-favorable situation with partial water drive, the voidage is faster than the water influx. That harms the ultimate recov-ery factor as it leads to more gas liberation and higher pro-duced GOR. Loss of solution gas increases the oil viscosity, decreases the oil formation volume factor, and consumes the reservoir energy. In addition there is a risk of pushing the oil into the gas cap due to aggressive water injection to re-pressurize the reservoirs to the target pressure. Portion of that oil will be immobile and it will be lost.

So, the necessity to optimize the production and injec-tion rates in saturated reservoirs gets high because of the introduced risk of gas liberationwhich has a negative ef-fect on the ultimate recovery. It is quite important to think about the optimum injection and production rates should be tested using numerical simulator or other analytical methods to maximize the assets values

Advanced Technology


Spark

Ethane HDPE , LLDPE , LDPE381 $ 1140 $ , 1130 $ , 1165 $

Propane Propene , Poly propene315 $ 650 $ 960 $

Benzene Styrene Poly styrene586 $ 935 $ 1160 $

Petrochemical Industry

23% 31 % 5.5 % 9 %

13,000 Millions Ton Equivalent: Total annual world consumptionNUCLEAR RENEWABLES PETROLEUM COAL NATURAL GAS

comes from 31.5 %

( 57.5 US$/bbl) Added value = 14.4 US$/bbl

COKE

SULFUR

DIESEL

JETFUEL

MOGAS

LPG

9.2 %1.1 %40.5 %19.7 %22 %3.8 %

OIL & GAS IndustryIlluminating facts about

The mentioned prices for one ton

For a re�nery with complex number of 10.6 and capacity of about 91,000 BBLs per day working on crude oil of about 30 API

SPARK, May 201610

SPARK | April 2016

oil and Gas industry Future Personal experience

The Oil and Gas industry is going through very tough time that never been seen since the 80s. I have had a discussion with many experts and friends about the future of the industry; all of us are sharing the same worry and fear. The current situation has many fac-tors affecting the oil prices, mostly po-litical. The supply and demand scenario is not strongly the main factor as the extra volume added to the market is not more than 500 thousand barrels. There is no doubt that the oil and gas will still the main energy source for the foreseeable future, even if the renew-able energies are commercial and ready to be deployed. The world is changing for sure. The main fear we all share is about the lack of experience. Meaning, with the current situation many profes-sionals may leave the industry for good and the industry may not be able to attract new professionals. Even it can attract some experienced professionals back a good chunk of them is lost for good. The knowledge transfer and the technical quality of the engineers and geoscientists will be a challenge in the coming few years. It is a concern that no one can deny within the industry. The way forward for new joiners is the following, don’t give up as the current situation is temporary the question is when will it end? Try to get a job relat-ed to your specialty if not in the indus-try try the university, try to volunteer time to any technical society. Stay in touch with the industry and get pre-pared as when it will pick up the boom will be huge. Build your skills specially computer and languge. Stay tuned and have hope. Good times will come.

Eng. Mohamed Helmy

Sr. Petrophysicist at Shell


Spark

The sharp drop in oil prices is felt worldwide and across all industries. More specifically, the decline has issued the most challenging time for the oil industry forcing companies to take tough measures in an effort to survive the down turn. These tough measures include but not limited to budget cuts, lay-offs and general cuts to discretionary spending. The upside for such austerity measures would be the emergence of a fat-free industry, lean and ready to grow back to original heights and beyond.

Egypt’s oil industry is unfortunately not im-mune to such worldwide distresses and may even be more severely impacted with com-pounded effects as Egypt faces harsh local economic conditions. This constitutes both a risk and an opportunity to companies op-erating in this punitive environment. The risk is for joint venture companies as they can re-duce budgets and general expenditure but unable to remove the fat as their International Oil Companies (IOC) counterparts. Also worth noting the county’s need for energy sources which would be in direct conflict of any nec-essary budget cuts. On the other hand, the local service companies have huge risks oper-ating in such a competitive market but with a huge opportunity to emerge at the end of the downturn in a better position to grow more efficiently and effectively. Only time will tell the outcome for all.

Eng. Ihab Zaky

Senior Technical Professional CFS/DFG Champ, Halliburton

Oil PricesWhat’s behind the drop ?

SPARK, May 201612

AIChE Suez

AIChE Opening PartyOn Monday Oct. 12th and for the 3rd time,we hit the walls of PME -Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering-once again. Every single student knows what it means when we say “AIChE Opening party”. From AIChE Booth with a full plan prepared by our Extra committee especially for that day and in the presence of, AIChE Advisor Dr. Rehab M. El-Maghraby we started the day with our enthusiastic shouting followed by a photo session and some funny games which got the admiration of both AIChERs and ordinary students. Along with that our Direct Publicity members took the responsibility of directing the newcomers and helping them �lling the recruitment applications which ended by �lling more than 100 application in the �rst 48 hours.

AIChE Petrochemicals Conference

For the first time in Egypt WE –AIChE Suez- have successfully heldan astonishing conference about Petrochemicals with the partici-pation of four major companies (EMETHANEX - ELAB –MOPCO – ETHYDECO) and in cooperation with E-Chem Company.With 500 attendees including Chemists, Engineers and even Geologists both students and graduates from all over Egypt, our A.P.C –AIChE Petrochemicals Conference- started witha welcoming speech by our president Mr. Ahmed Kishta followed by another word from our generous host E-Chem Co.We hopefully intend to hold our A.P.C. once again next year with more thoughts, more companies, more success and with a graduation fair as possible. P&G Career Development Program

Refining Dep. Students represent the core of our chapter, that’s why our role is to always provide them with the technical courses they need. So on Monday Sep. 14th as a cooperation between our chapter and Pharaonic Petroleum Company they provided us with a four successive day HYSYS course in the company headquarter. The company also offered us free accommodation andtran-sportation which was generous from them.

PhPC HYSYS Course EMEC Mud SchoolThis time we managed to convince EMEC Co.and Mr. Abd-Elhakim El-Ghoul (EMEC TrainingManager) - one of only four verified trainers allover Egypt- to provide us with an intense certifiedmud course for the students of PME for free. 24students from Petroleum Engineering & Petroleum Refining departments attended a 20-hour course putting them on the right way to be in the Mud Engineering career. The course took place from Monday Oct. 19th till Thursday 22nd. Speaking the language of numbers and in 2015 only, we have provided about 230 interns in more than 16 companies.

In Cooperation with Esme SU SC, we organized the day that Students had got the chance to know all CV writing secrets, tips and tricks in a big event sponsored by Procter and Gamble, P&G. Mr. Moustafa Essam, Near East and North West Africa Talent Practice Manager at P&G, explained the basic expectations from interviewers and the DO’s and Don’ts for Inter-viewees. A second session by Mr. Moustafa included some CV writing tips and tricks. About 30 students had the opportunity to experience a real interview in front of a real HR manager of highly ranked companies in our �eld.Every day, Procter & Gamble's brands enter nine out of 10 homes in Egypt.


SparkAIChE Suez

AIChE Opening PartyOn Monday Oct. 12th and for the 3rd time,we hit the walls of PME -Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering-once again. Every single student knows what it means when we say “AIChE Opening party”. From AIChE Booth with a full plan prepared by our Extra committee especially for that day and in the presence of, AIChE Advisor Dr. Rehab M. El-Maghraby we started the day with our enthusiastic shouting followed by a photo session and some funny games which got the admiration of both AIChERs and ordinary students. Along with that our Direct Publicity members took the responsibility of directing the newcomers and helping them �lling the recruitment applications which ended by �lling more than 100 application in the �rst 48 hours.

AIChE Petrochemicals Conference

For the first time in Egypt WE –AIChE Suez- have successfully heldan astonishing conference about Petrochemicals with the partici-pation of four major companies (EMETHANEX - ELAB –MOPCO – ETHYDECO) and in cooperation with E-Chem Company.With 500 attendees including Chemists, Engineers and even Geologists both students and graduates from all over Egypt, our A.P.C –AIChE Petrochemicals Conference- started witha welcoming speech by our president Mr. Ahmed Kishta followed by another word from our generous host E-Chem Co.We hopefully intend to hold our A.P.C. once again next year with more thoughts, more companies, more success and with a graduation fair as possible. P&G Career Development Program

Refining Dep. Students represent the core of our chapter, that’s why our role is to always provide them with the technical courses they need. So on Monday Sep. 14th as a cooperation between our chapter and Pharaonic Petroleum Company they provided us with a four successive day HYSYS course in the company headquarter. The company also offered us free accommodation andtran-sportation which was generous from them.

PhPC HYSYS Course EMEC Mud SchoolThis time we managed to convince EMEC Co.and Mr. Abd-Elhakim El-Ghoul (EMEC TrainingManager) - one of only four verified trainers allover Egypt- to provide us with an intense certifiedmud course for the students of PME for free. 24students from Petroleum Engineering & Petroleum Refining departments attended a 20-hour course putting them on the right way to be in the Mud Engineering career. The course took place from Monday Oct. 19th till Thursday 22nd. Speaking the language of numbers and in 2015 only, we have provided about 230 interns in more than 16 companies.

In Cooperation with Esme SU SC, we organized the day that Students had got the chance to know all CV writing secrets, tips and tricks in a big event sponsored by Procter and Gamble, P&G. Mr. Moustafa Essam, Near East and North West Africa Talent Practice Manager at P&G, explained the basic expectations from interviewers and the DO’s and Don’ts for Inter-viewees. A second session by Mr. Moustafa included some CV writing tips and tricks. About 30 students had the opportunity to experience a real interview in front of a real HR manager of highly ranked companies in our �eld.Every day, Procter & Gamble's brands enter nine out of 10 homes in Egypt.

SPARK, May 201614

Advanced Technology

New In BriefEni finds one of the world’s largest natu-ral gas fields off Egypt’s coast.

The company said the area was 1,450m (4,757 feet) beneath the surface and covered 100 sq km (39 sq miles). It could hold as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The company says that the Zohr field “could become one of the world’s largest natural-gas finds”, and help meet Egypt’s gas needs for decades.

“This historic discovery will be able to transform the en-ergy scenario of Egypt,” said Claudio Descalzi, chief exec-utive of Eni.

Honeywell UoP Technology, Modular Equipment Powers new Clean Fuels refinery in Pakistan

Honeywell announced that its UOP process technology and equipment is helping Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) increase its production of high-qual-ity gasoline, helping meet growing domestic demand for clean transpor-tation fuels.

PRL commissioned a new unit at its facility in Karachi, Pakistan, doubling its output of high-quality gasoline to 24,000 metric tons per month. The facility uses Honeywell UOP’s Penex™ process to produce isomerate, a high-value gasoline blending component, to produce environmental-ly-friendlier fuels with reduced emissions. Honeywell UOP delivered the Penex process unit in modular form to help ensure on-time de-livery and faster start up. Honeywell’s UOP’s Penex process upgrades light naphtha feedstock to produce isomerate, a cleaner gasoline blend-stock that does not contain benzene, aromatics or olefins. The process uses Honeywell UOP’s portfolio of proven, high-ac-tivity isomerization and benzene saturation catalysts. To date, Honeywell UOP has sold more than 220 Penex units, and its isomerization catalysts have been loaded into more than 300 units worldwide.

Amec Foster Wheeler announces today that its innovative propri-etary technology is being used in a research and development pro-gramme at Fukushima, in Japan, to make radioactive waste safer. The work, carried out in partner-ship with Fuji Electric on behalf of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, will centre on the SIAL® matrix, a specialised geopolymer tech-nique for encapsulating various radioactive waste streams.The re-search will test whether SIAL® can be used to solidify sludge arising from the damage at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant caused by the earthquake and resulting tsunami in March 2011.

amec Foster Wheeler’s SIal® Technology To Be Trialled at Fukushima, Japan

British Petroleum (BP) has started preparing the land allocated to establishing a natural gas process-ing plant in Rosetta (Rashid) city, with a capacity ranging from 600 to 700mcf/d

A senior official from the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) said that BP will complete the production facilities of the plant by the end of 2020. However, the convention stipulates that the gas production from the project would be ready by January 2020 and produce 1bcf/d for five years.

Article 10 of the convention states that in the case the contractor fails to complete the project by the set deadline, a six-month grace period would be al-lowed. After that, a penalty mechanism will be ap-plied if there are no compelling circumstances pre-venting the contractor from completing the project.

The official said the convention includes the ex-pected plan for producing natural gas in the project during the coming years, starting from July 2017.

BP to Establish natural Gas Processing Plant with 77bcf/d Capacity


Spark

The Engineer Tarek Mullah ,minister of petro-leum and mineral wealth, and engineer Adel Abdul Mahdi, Iraqi Oil Minister, have signed a memorandum of understanding to strength-en the bonds of cooperation between the two countries in the oil and gas industry.

According to the statement, the Egyptian ministry of petroleum ministers said that Egypt and Iraq have distinct opportunities for further economic cooperation in various fields. That supports the two countries to have develop-ment and a true renaissance which reflects positively on the improvement of the standard of living of the citizens.

Petrobel company links the production of “Nawras and east-ern Balteem” by the Nile delta area to the National Network for gases at the end of this month in order to add about 80 million cubic feet of gas daily.

Egyptian national holding company ,EGAS, has said that the production that will be added will compensate the rate of the natural decline in productivity of Egyptian fields which is 100 million per month. EGAS added that Petrobel has carried out studies and seismic survey and determined a number of 10 sites for exploratory wells at effective areas in the Nile Delta.

He said that the total of the remaining reserves in the fields of natural gas in the Nile Delta and the Mediterranean Sea reached 2.07 trillion cubic feet at the end of last October. The total produc-tion of the complex of natural gas reached 10.6 trillion cubic feet since the start of production in 1974 until the end of last October.

The contract with Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Assiut Oil Refining Company (ASORC) for the modernization project of the Assiut refin-ery, Upper Egypt, is designed to refine the “bottom of the barrel” in the frame of the long-standing cooperation between Italian and Egyptian Governments and companies, especially in the oil and gas sector.

The investment has an estimated total value of $1.5 billion, aims at maximizing die-sel production, and will introduce the most modern refinery technologies in Upper Egypt to meet the growing local demand for petroleum products.

Technip in $2.9bn deal to upgrade Egypt refineries

Egypt and Iraq sign a memorandum of un-derstanding covering the refinery and stor-age of Iraqi crude oil in Egypt

Petrobel adds 80 million cubic feet of natural gas after linking the two rigs of nawras and east of Balteem by end of March

Carbon Holding’s proposed Tahrir Petrochemical Complex is to be located within the Ain Sokhna industrial zone, near the Gulf of Suez. Major contracts for the project have been awarded, the construction works are expected to start in 2015 and commissioning is expected in 2019.

The petrochemical complex will feature a four million tonne per annum naph-tha cracker plant, which will be the first of its kind in Egypt and the biggest in the world. It will also include related downstream facilities with capacity to produce 1.4 million tonnes per annum of ethylene and polyethylene, 900,000

tpa of propylene, 250,000 tpa of butadiene, 350,000 tpa of benzene and 100,000 tpa of hexene-1.A single-train ammonium nitrate process plant with a capacity of 1,060 tpd and a nitric acid unit will also be installed

at the complex.The project shall have a total capitalized cost of approximately US$ 7 billion. It will purchase approximately US$ 1.5

billion of goods and services from Egypt during the construction phase. Approximately 20,000 persons will be em-ployed during its peak constructionphase while it is anticipated that in excess of 15,000 indirect jobs will be created during the same phase. It will employ approximately 3,000 engineers and technicians during its operation phase while it is anticipated that in excess of 25,000 in direct jobs will be created during the same phase. The project shall increase total Egyptian exports by approximately 35%

TaHrIr PETroCHEMICalS CoMPanY

Technip will now start activities for the project, as well as providing support to ensure project financing, a statement said, adding that SACE, a provider of investment pro-tection services, is ready to evaluate a possible intervention to support the project.

In another development, Technip Italy and SACE announced the finalization of a joint agreement with Midor (Middle East Oil Refinery) for a project to modernize and expand the Midor refinery near Alexandria, Egypt.

The investment has an estimated total value of $1.4 billion and aims at improv-ing the prodution quality of the plant, considered the most advanced of the African continent, by increasing its refining capacity from 100,000 to 160,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

SPARK, May 201616

Dr. Mohamed FathySenior Process Engineer at EPROM

CCr reformingThe Axens CCR reforming process is schematically rep-

resented in Figure 1, including key features for produc-ing high-octane gasoline or aromatics-rich petrochemical streams from naphtha. The catalyst circulation systems of these reformers are designed for long and active catalyst service as well as ease of operation and maintenance. To ensure low catalyst attrition, the lift system must be de-signed for continuous, smooth, non-pulsating and gentle lifting. Catalyst is continuously transferred to the regen-erator, where the coked catalyst undergoes a sequence of steps involving controlled coke combustion, oxychlori-nation and calcination to restore the catalyst activity and metals redispersion. The proprietary RegenC-2 dry burn loop regeneration system is able to perform complete cat-alyst activity restoration under mild conditions to maintain catalyst activity and mechanical strength.

Figure1: Axens CCR reforming process

The reformer’s side-by-side reactor arrangement, as shown in Figure 1, has several advantages over the stacked design. Access for construction, inspection and future mod-ifications to the reactors, as well as to the internals, is great-

ly increased. In addition, thermal expansion problems are minimised and the reactor structure is lighter and lower to the ground. This enables an optimal radial reactor design (L/D) without height constraints and a simplified internals structure that is less prone to mechanical problems due to thermal expansion.

Figure 2 RegenC-2 regeneration block flow

The key to unit performance and long catalyst life in CCR reforming is the RegenC-2 catalyst regenerator technology. RegenC-2 consists of four independent zones, depicted in the block flow diagram in Figure 2. These zones include:

» A primary burn zone equipped with a dry burn loop to minimise moisture during combustion

» A finishing zone with oxygen and temperature control (no sharp exotherms or carbon breakthrough)

» An oxychlorination zone for metals redispersion » A calcination zone to dry the catalyst.

Coke burning is the principal function of a catalyst re-generation system. It is essential that this step be carried out to completion. However, the coke burning step is the primary contributor to three negative factors concerning catalyst performance and life: I. Metallic phase sintering, which lessens catalyst perfor-

The refining industry is investing heavily in new processing units to produce ultra-low-sulphur (ULS) fuels. As a result, hydrogen utilisation is increasing, on-stream factor and hydrogen reliability are becoming more import-ant, and resources for other investments are scarce. Catalytic reforming is the preferred technology for producing high-octane gasoline and is usually the refinery’s main source of hydrogen. Although existing reformers in North

America are generally not fully utilised, many are older semiregenerative (SR) or cyclic units with cycle times that are in-compatible with continuous ULS fuels production. They produce less gasoline and hydrogen than newer ultra-low-pres-sure continuous catalytic regeneration (CCR) units.

Octanizing reformer Options

Case Study


Sparkmance; in particular, stability II. Partial dechlorination of the carrier, which reduces catalytic activity

III. Hydrothermal sintering of the carrier, which decreases mechanical strength and ultimate catalyst life.

The leading factors involved in carrier ageing are the moisture level, temperature and combustion time.CCR catalysts The CR 400/700 and AR 500 catalyst series

are formulated to meet the specific needs of gasoline and aromatics production respectively. They are supplied in either a calcinated or reduced state.

The combination of catalyst properties, regenerator de-sign and catalyst-transfer systems results in very

low catalyst attrition (<2% of the inventory per year, or <0.0015% of circulation). The consequence of attrition is greater than the inconvenience and expense of catalyst addition.

As fines are produced and build up in the unit, the pres-sure drop can increase and catalyst circulation problems can arise. In some designs, this causes a “dump and screen-ing” of the catalyst on a yearly or biannual basis, resulting in

added downtime to remove the fines and clean the reac-tor screens. With the side-by-side design, fines production is minimised and on-stream time maximised.

The superior strength and stability of these catalysts has recently been demonstrated in a third-party CCR unit.

After change-out to CR 702, catalyst attrition dropped by 50%, resulting in improved catalyst circulation and a reduction in catalyst make-up costs.

When the CR 702 catalyst was introduced into the unit, catalyst stability was also improved and the chloride addi-tion rate was reduced by a factor of four, thereby lowering operating costs and fouling/corrosion of the downstream equipment.

CCr unit at ErC CRU Reaction Section Capacity = 70,163 kg/h.Continuos Catalyst Regeneration (CCR) = 394 kg catalyst/h

Table 1 Overall Material Balance

Table 2 Reformate Specs

Aromatic content for C7 to C9 = 72.5 wt %

Table 3 H2 Rich Gas

sbPx: Single branch paraffin Cx.mbPx: Multi branch paraffin Cx.In normal operation, the metal dispersion is reconditioned

in the oxychlorination zone. The dechlorinationthat occurs in the coke burning section is predominantly

the result of the moisture level in the burn zone.Accordingly, a reduction in the moisture content during

combustion lowers the catalyst dechlorination, which has three advantages:IV. Equipment required for chloride treatment in the com-bustion effluents is reduced.V. Corrosion potential downstream of the combustion effluent treatment is reduced.

VI. Chloriding agent addition during oxychlorination to compensate for the dechlorination during coke burning is reduced.Overall, the dry burn loop RegenC-2 regenerator affords

several advantages: » Extends catalyst life: a significant increase in catalyst

life compared to the hot burn loop (>900 cycles has been demonstrated)

» Reduces catalyst attrition via controlled temperature and less severe thermal cycling

» Increases catalyst stability through optimisation of the oxychlorination operating parameters throughout the catalyst life

» Improves regenerator operation flexibility due to the separation of the burn and oxychlorination gas loops

» Reduces downstream corrosion due to better chloride retention and management

» Discharges of a clean vent gas; ie, no chloride-removal equipment is required

SPARK, May 201618

Eng. Ahmed El-SesyProcess Engineer at Egyptian Indian Polyester, EIPET

Almost , PET is used daily from most of the human beings nowadays as it is one of the smartest discovered Polymer ever till now , it takes its position as the polymer number one in the recycle safety index ,its applications are very wide and totally different than each other in its using.

PET or Polyethylene Terephthalate is one type of the polyesters which is produced from the esterification of the organic acids with alcohol, then the produced ester is polymerized to give a solid polyester.

Its Physical properties in its natural state are a colorless, semi-crystalline resin. Based on how it is processed, PET can be semi-rigid to rigid, and it is very light weight. It makes a good gas and fair moisture barrier, as well as a good barrier to alcohol (requires additional “barrier” treatment) and solvents. It is strong and impact resistant. PET becomes white

When exposed to chloroform and also certain other chem-icals such as toluene. Through the last 50 years ,the world demand of Polyethylene terephthalate is continuously increasing ,and it is expected to continue like this for the next 25 year as a profitable petrochemical industry be-cause there is no other discovered raw polymer that can replace it till now.

Its applications are the unique advantage as they have different grades depending on the Intrinsic Viscosity or I.V.

These are some grades of the PET Produced worldwide: » Fiber grade (textile) of I.V range from 0.58 to 0.7 » sheets grade (radiography scanning sheets) of I.V from

0.64 to 0.78 » Bottle grade of I.V ranges from 0.75 to 0.85

The technology of manufacturing continuously improved to optimize the processes of different grades , every grade has its own process technology and production methods.

We will talk about the third grade or the Bottle grade as we have in Egypt the largest production plant in Africa and south Europe with the latest technology Procedures, this is the plant profile of Egyptian Indian Polyethylene tere-phthalate company (EIPET)

Plant total area =141,000 m2Plant Capacity = 420,000 MTon/yearPlant product grades:1. Drinking water bottle grade2. Hot fill grade (fast food packaging)3. FRH (fast reheating grade) more rigid4. carbonated bottle gradeThe difference between theses grades is determined by

the I.V required and as per the Europe ISO-audit, it is man-ufactured, bagged and exported to mainly Europe .

The Technology supplier is Orlekon Barmag Germany as a project main contractor with the turnkey contract with the owners. The Process Type is continuous three stages till final product bagging. PET Bottle grade Production control is DCS Yokogawa technology.

The main stages are :I. Esterification stage of (PTA ,purified terephthalic acid ) with (MEG . mono Ethylene Glycol). This stage consists of two reactors CSTR in series. It is an endothermal low-pres-sure continuous reaction and the acid Conversion is about 98%.II. Condesation Polymerization of the ester produced into amorphous Solid Chips of low I.V. This stage consists of three reactors CSTR in series and it is also an endothermal but under fine vacuum reaction.

III. Solid State Polymerization stage and this process are applied to Increase the crystallinity and hence the I.V as per final product Requirements. This is a different process with separate control system, it is applied on the solid chips and heating by hot Nitrogen fluidizing the chips in the crystallization stages and the recovered nitrogen is circulated and purified from the byproduct organics and recovered nitrogen is introduced to the system again with pure nitrogen by the system of feed and bleed control as per the impurity analyzer in the upstream of the recov-ered Nitrogen.This type of polymerization reaction is moderate cost

compared to other polymers, this reaction needs contin-uous heating. Thermal efficiency of all heaters and users like reactors is a main issue where the grade of the prod-uct is determined by the intrinsic viscosity mainly, I.V is a function of { P,T controllers like following:

The reaction Temperature is a function of reactor LHSV or residence time,reactants concentration, reactor agitation in some stages and vapors pressure.

Pressure is also a big issue for process control especially in the first two stages as the main rule for I.V control is to control the vacuum of the polymerization which deter-mines the degree of the polymerization as the reaction is reversible so the by products are continuously removed by means of series of Jet ejection and post vacuum pumping complicated system.

Case Study

peT resin manufacturing plant, eipeT


Spark

The principal of quantitative ,qualitative optimization is highlighted in the process Engineering in general and espe-cially it is not easy to approach this goal in our process . The daily throughput of specific properties is determined and pre-planned and all downstream factors to be adjusted.

So, simply we can see that the polycondensation stage is monitored to achieve certain I.V with vacuum generation in the reactors. More vacuum generation leads to a higher degree of polymerization and higher I.V. by breaking the vacuum so directly getting lower I.V.

Process inputs :As we mentioned before that Purified Terephthalic Acid

(PTA) is the main Input to this process , hence we are con-trolling the flow rate of PTA. we can control all other raw material consequently.

In the mean of the mole ratio controller system, the pro-cess is automatically controlled only as following:

» We have to determine the quantity of the daily through-put that we planned to produce, marked as (M mtpd)

» Then using this value we can determine the quantity of PTA that will be charged to the Paste tank mixing step by (.85 * M= PTA)

» After determining the PTA by other given equation (.02*M=IPA) determining the iso-Phthalic acid added to the paste .

» By using molecular weight ratio between MEG/PTA and multiplying by the daily throughput, M. We can determine the mono ethylene glycol added to whole process and all additives flow rates like third step by using every additive mole ratio to PTA main raw then multiplying by the total daily throughput, M, so easily we can know all the flow rates charged to the process. But, actually all these inputs are automatically controlled

by the cascade control system provided by the technology of YOKOGAWA.

This technology is directly calculating and setting all raw material values to the charging equipment ,only the DCS will determine the daily throughput and other thing will be either controlled automatically or manually as required.

The process fluctuating is the mean issue to be controlled by the DCS to laminate the system. It needs a profession-al control for all downstream reactor Levels ,Pressure and temperature where as at the finisher outlet the melt poly-mer is pumped at high pressure to cutters or chippers to quench the strands and cut it by certain standard size and crystallinty .

Then the amorphous chips is stocked to other stage called solid state polymerization where the crystallinity is improved by heating upto the required level and this is another type of control and no more additives, only the chips is gradually heated to softening point by pure heat-ed nitrogen.

Where the applied parameters for the subsystems are crit-ically changed with the change of the product grade (I.V) , and /or with the change of the targeted daily throughput of amorphous pellets.

These parameters could be calculated for every reactor. We Can find out that the Pressure and temperature of the melt polymerization reaction at the finisher Reactor spe-cially will indirectly proportional to each other and in this case we have to control the vacuum by continuous removal of the byproduct EG vapors , and control temperature by continuously heating the reactor jacket according to the re-quired heat of polymerization in this reactor, the data pro-vided was calculated for changing of the daily throughput with I.V( .68 dltr/gm ) at finisher outlet with the operating Pressure ,Temperature and reactor level.

Figure1: Process Flow Diagram of PET

SPARK, May 201620

Case Study

Dr. Mohamed Abd ElatyProduction Manager at MOPCO

ammonia Synthesis Catalyst

The critical discovery, made after a magnetite ore contain-ing potash and alumina showed relatively high activity, was that a combination of an acidic or amphoteric oxide such as alumina, silica or zirconia with an alkaline oxide such as potash gave catalysts with high performance. After thou-sands of experiments, a final composition was derived of fused magnetite (Fe3O4) promoted by alumina and potash. Despite the passage of a century, it is striking that most modern ammonia plants use catalysts largely based on the formula defined in the original patent.

Industrial process catalysts must have the following characteristics:

» High activity at minimum temperatures. » Long service life with no decrease of activity. » Resistance to the catalyst poisons present in industrial

synthesis gases. » Adequate mechanical strength.

Fig. Effect of catalyst on the activation energy of the ammonia synthesis.

By the early 20th century it was recognised that demand for nitrogen fertilisers would far exceed that available from natural sources. In 1908, an intensive search began for a catalyst to produce synthetic ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen. Studies by Haber and by Bosch and Mittasch[2] at BASF identified promising iron, osmium, uranium and uranium carbide catalysts. Mittasch returned to iron-based materials and observed that small amounts of im-

purities greatly affected the performance of pure iron catalysts. In a comprehensive study of multicomponent catalysts; elements were identified that had either positive or negative effects on the performance of iron as a catalyst (see table 1)

Surface science studies of the activity of iron single crys-tals have shown significant structure dependence in the key reaction steps of ammonia synthesis. More open struc-tures such as the Fe(111) structure illustrated in Fig. 1 gave activities of up to two orders of magnitude higher than more closed structures such as Fe (110).

The large activity differences may be due to specific sur-face configurations of atoms, in particular the so-called C7 sites present in the Fe(111) and Fe(211) phases. However, more recent theoretical studies suggest that the actual active sites in the commercial catalyst may be step edg-es in the iron crystallites.[6,7] These sites are assumed to promote the rate of dissociation of di-nitrogen to nitro-gen atoms.

Fig 1: Iron single crystal structures

The conventional industrial catalystThe original commercial BASF ammonia synthesis cata-

lyst contained between 0.6-3.0% Al2O3 and 0.3-1.5% K2O fused with magnetite ore (Fe3O4). This material was then reduced in the process gas to give the active catalyst.

A major change since the 1980s in synthesis converter design allowed the use of the small, high-activity 1.5 – 3.0 mm size catalyst without pressure drop increase. This was achieved by using either vertical radial flow designs (e.g. Ammonia Casale; Topsøe; Uhde) or KBR’s horizontal con-verter basket design.

Catalyst activation requires reduction of the iron oxide to metallic iron with hydrogen. Oxygen is removed from the magnetite structure with minimal change in crystallite geometry resulting in a high iron surface area.


SparkSYnTHESIS looP DESIGn

The synthesis loop pressure is around 185 bar and is based on Uhde’s single converter with three radial beds with in-ternal heat exchangers. The make-up gas enters the loop via a combined chiller upstream of the ammonia separator. Separation temperature is set -10°C. Downstream of the ammonia converter HP steam is generated and routed to the superheater upstream of the HT-Shift. Purge gas and flash gas from the let down vessel are scrubbed in the am-monia recovery unit. The hydrogen is furthermore recov-ered in a membrane hydrogen recovery unit and routed back to the syngas compressor suction, as shown in Figs 2 and 3.

Fig 2: MOPCO ammonia loop block diagram

Fig 3: MOPCO ammonia synthesis loop

Process description of ammonia synthesis unit » The synthesis gas is compressed in a two-casing turbo

compressor which is driven by an extraction condensing steam turbine.

» In gas chiller, the gas temperature is lowered to the required suction temperature by evaporating ammonia.

» The make-up gas is then compressed in three sections. » The compression of the recycle gas is performed togeth-

er with the 3rd section (7 impellers) of the make-up gas in the second casing.

» One impeller has been provided in the recycle section for this purpose and is separated from the make-up gas section by a strong diaphragm.

» The turbine driver is directly coupled to the synthesis gas compressor casings. One stage operates as HP-steam extraction turbine and the other stage as MP-steam con-densing turbine. The turbine is equipped with a speed control and an extraction pressure control system.

ammonia catalyst and reactor specificationThe Uhde-designed converter has three beds with inter-

nal heat exchangers. Features of the design are: » The cylindrical converter is about 20.3 m high, with an in-

ternal diameter of 2.8 m, and operates at 187 bar absolute. » Radial-type catalyst beds for maximum conversion rate,

lower recycle gas rate and low pressure drop. » Indirect cooling by heat exchanger for optimum tem-

perature control » Full bore closure for easy withdrawal of the internal heat

exchanger without catalyst removal and comfortable ac-cess for catalyst removal without removal of the cartridge access to all catalyst beds without removal of intermediate heat exchanger.

The catalyst type S6-10 red (pre-reduced) will be used in the first catalyst bed. This catalyst is supplied in the form of grey granules with a size range of 1.5 - 3mm and a bulk density of approximately 2.3 kg/l after vibration.

The catalyst type S6-10 (oxidic) will be used in the second and third catalyst beds. This catalyst is supplied in the form of black granules with a size range of 1.5 - 3mm and a bulk density of approximately 2.9 kg/l after vibration.

operation Parameters

» Optimal pressureSince there is a large volume decrease associated with

the synthesis of ammonia (4 volumes to 2volumes), the synthesis reaction is favored by high pressures. The syn-thesis loop pressure has been reduced to 100-300 bara. Furthermore, the Catalyst operates at an even lower pres-sure, typically 80 – 100 bara.

» Optimal temperatureAn analysis of the thermodynamics equilibrium for the

synthesis reaction shows that the highest possible yield is achieved at the lowest possible Temperature.

» Inert gas concentration Inert gases are present, such as argon or methane The

presence of inert gases reduces the partial pressure of the ‘active’ gas components, ie. Hydrogen and nitrogen; however, the reduced space-time yield resulting from the presence of inert gases still exceeds the value calculated assuming the true synthesis gas pressure equals the sum of the partial pressures of hydrogen and nitrogen.

More elevated temperatures would indeed increase the rate of formation, but would have a negative influence on equilibrium. This influence can be compensated by using higher pressure.

Relying on pressure alone to achieve acceptable reaction rates, pressures of around 2000 bar would be required.

aMMonIa SYnTHESIS looP PErForManCE aSSESSMEnT

To assist MOPCO’s operation, Johnson Matthey has de-veloped a suite of tools to characterize the catalyst perfor-mance based on actual plant data. Especially for ammonia synthesis, an integrated approach is essential as part of the product gas is recycled, which influences the overall rate of

SPARK, May 201622

Case Studyproduction via the prevailing reaction equilibria. A detailed model of the synthesis loop, including the heat-exchange network, was built in the flow sheet package HYSYSTM. The ammonia synthesis reactor was modeled by means of an in-house proprietary developed extension containing our detailed ammonia synthesis reaction kinetics.

Fig 5: Simplified sketch of the ammonia synthesis loop in HYSYSTM

Data reconciliationThe operating data from the plant were evaluated by us-

ing the developed simulation model in combination with in-house developed data reconciliation techniques. The aim of the integrated approach is to perform a heat and mass balance over the main process units of the ammonia synthesis loop to assess plant operation and characterize catalyst performance. Monitoring the plant operation us-ing the combination of a flow sheet package with rigorous detailed kinetic models and data reconciliation capabilities has a number of benefits:

» The simulation provides a useful consistency check on plant data. This gives confidence that the plant is really operating as the readings indicate and can help identify any process measurements that are inconsistent and hence show where instrument re-calibration may be needed.

» By using the software with accurate laboratory gas anal-ysis, it is possible that errors in plant instrumentation (e.g. flow, temperature measurements) can be identified.

» Regular checks allow any changes in catalyst perfor-mance to be identified and investigated.

» The models employed are based on a detailed math-ematical model of the plant, including the overall and atomic mass balances, heat balances, reaction equilibria, and reaction kinetics that would be satisfied by perfect measurements on a plant in absolutely steady operation.

» The evaluation indicates that the catalyst performance of the installed KATALCOJM 35-series in the MOPCO Ammonia-1 plant is as expected after two years of oper-ation, as illustrated in Fig.6. This also shows that the plant is operated excellently with respect to the presence of any poisons in the loop. By assessing regular datasets, the ac-tual catalyst performance can be tracked over time and any deviations (e.g. passing driers, failed internals) can be identified early on.

Fig 6: Actual versus expected performance of MOPCO ammonia synthesis catalyst

optimizationWith the results from the data reconciliation it can be

assessed whether there is any further room for improve-ment, i.e. can the ammonia make be boosted or the loop efficiency be increased. The main variables to be consid-ered are the individual catalyst bed temperatures. An ex-ample of the effect of the individual bed temperatures on the ammonia make is shown in Fig.7. The plots show a distinct optimum, which would allow the production to be increased by about 3 mtpd. Typically, ammonia synthesis converters are operated close to the optimum given the plant constraints.

Therefore, the actual gain that can be realized by opti-mizing bed temperatures is generally in the order of 0.5%.

references [1]. Abdel Aaty, M.,( MOPCO), Egypt with Lunn, M. Y., etal,

Johnson Matthey Catalysts Billingham, United Kingdom in ‘’Improving the Operation of Ammonia Synthesis Loops’’ , Nitrogen+Syngas International Conference, Düsseldorf, germany, 2011.

[2]. Mittasch, A, in ‘Advances in Catalysis’ Vol 2, p. 83. Academic Press, New York (1949).

[3]. Ertl, G.: ‘Reactions at Surfaces: From Atoms to Complexity’. Nobel Prize lecture (2007).

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first deepwater mediterranean horizontal payzone

Eng. Ihab ZakySenior Technical Professional CFS/DFG Champ, Halliburton

Although local experience with deepwater horizontal drilling was limited, Halliburton has extensive global expertise in developing fluids and programs for successful horizontal drilling and completion. During proprietary systematic design processes, the importance and challenging na-ture of this well were highlighted, therefore tapping into the glob-al network of experts. This global network ensured the involvement of experienced engineers and ad-visors to properly identify and ad-dress all of the challenges.

BARADRIL-N® reservoir drilling flu-id was proposed and accepted for use for the horizontal section. It was selected because of its non-damag-ing characteristics; this water-based fluid provides effective fluid-loss control and reliable wellbore and formation stability. The particle size distribution (PSD) of a size-graded ground-marble bridging agent was optimized to obtain fil-trate control without solids invasion using proprietary PSD design software. A lubricant that is based on a modified vegetable oil was added to the fluid, and the concentra-tion was optimized to control and minimize torque in the horizontal section. The customized fluid formulation was tested extensively by performing a comprehensive core flood study and regained permeability tests on an actual reservoir core sample to confirm its non-damaging nature.

The complicated well trajectory and narrow target zone would require regular surveys, which would result in reg-ular circulation shutdowns. Drilling conditions were sim-ulated using a proprietary drilling hydraulics and cuttings

transport software package, which enabled the optimiza-tion of the survey plan to allow one pump shutdown per stand. The modeling was also used to optimize the running speed of the lower completion. Issues associated with hole cleaning, cuttings accumulation, and high equivalent circulating density (ECD) were anticipated and avoided.

The well was drilled in approximately 500 m of water depth with a low mudline tem-perature. The selection of a completion fluid required the crystallization and hydrate-for-mation risks to be completely understood and mitigated. A mixture of calcium chloride and calcium bromide base brines provided the desired properties, and the addition of a proprietary shale stabilizer ensured the stability of the interbedded shales in the openhole section. As with the drilling fluid, the completion brine was tested to mini-mize the potential for formation damage. The well was drilled to target depth, well surveys were completed, and normal ECD values were observed throughout the in-

terval. During completion, the screens were run to depth and gravel packed successfully. As a result of anticipating and identifying the technical challenges presented by this well, and then customizing optimal solutions, construction was completed ahead of the planned schedule.

The reservoir was drilled successfully, and the gravel pack operation was conducted with no problems. By avoiding drilling issues and optimizing the fluid performance, the well was delivered 10 days earlier than planned without compromising the productivity of the well.

Burullus Gas Company planned to drill well Mina Da in Egypt’s offshore Mediterranean deepwater field. The res-ervoir surveys indicated that the gas was contained in a very narrow target zone, only 15 m thick, and production would require a horizontal well. This well was the first horizontal well for Burullus and the first well of this type in Egyptian waters. Based on the long horizontal section, the nature of the formation, and the planned gravel pack

completion, several challenges were anticipated. These challenges included mitigating expected losses, ensuring good hole cleaning while avoiding sand erosion, controlling high torque, and minimizing formation damage. Drilling the well with a horizontal section of more than 500 m long and successfully installing and gravel packing a slotted liner would be difficult. The planned well was four times the length of previous wells drilled by Burullus, and good hole integrity was critical for reaching target depth with the gravel pack screens.

Case StudyCase Study

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www.erc-egypt.com

+ 202 3762 6428

ERC, Egyptian Re�ning Company

ERC14, Refaa Street, Dokki, Giza,Egypt

To address the increased demand for re�ned oil products in Egypt, the Egyptian Re�ning Compa-ny was established in July 2007 to design, con-struct and operate a new petroleum processing facility adjacent to the existing Cairo Oil Re�nery Company (CORC), which was built in 1969. ERC will further process products from CORC to produce additional high-quality petroleum prod-ucts essential to Cairo and Upper Egypt consum-ers. The total cost of the Project, including �nancing costs, is expected to be approximately USD 3.7 billion. The prominent �rm of Worley Parsons is providing project management consultancy ser-vices.

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