CAREERS CATALYST tce

Stop history from repeating itself

S we go to press the town of West in Texas, US, is reeling from a tragic explosion at a fertiliser plant that has killed 14 and left more than a hundred injured. The first question we ask ourselves is why , and while members of our community have been called on by the wider media to provide answers, right now we can only speculate and wait for the official investigation to uncover the causes. Once weve discovered how all of those layers of protection failed, the true challenge begins ensuring that the lessons learned are never forgotten. Flick through the news coverage in this issue and youll discover that this is a challenge with which the engineering community is continually wrestling. On p11 we report that seven have been killed in a confined spaces accident in a Mexican brewery, while 12 have been badly hurt at a refinery fire in the US. On p12 youll read that separate incidents have taken lives at an oleochemicals plant and waste facility in Malaysia. There is also the result of the US Chemical Safety Boards investigation into the incredible near miss at Chevrons Richmond refinery in California. Workers ignored company safety rules when a leak was discovered, and their ensuing actions escalated the problem, engulfing them in a thick cloud of flammable vapour. In the end, they had to crawl to safety and were very lucky to escape with theirlives. It doesnt make for easy reading, especially in light of the fact that none of these incidents will prove unique. They are repeats of previous incidents and so we come to realise that one of the links in the chain sharing the previous lessons learned, embedding them into corporate memory, and managing the integrity of process safety systems has failed. There is of course solace to be found. The community is not standing still. Safety experts have gathered at IChemEs Hazards AP conference in Kuala Lumpur and discussed with regional officials how to improve standards (p10). We would all do well to heed Nick Hallales advice on understanding the ramifications of overlooking the subtle differences in cross-cultural communication (p22). And there are real life case studies from those whove improved their own corporate safety by applying the strategies learned at

It doesnt make for easy reading, especially in light of the fact that none of these incidents will prove unique. They are repeats of previous incidents and so we come to realise that one of the links in the chain sharing the previous lessons learned, embedding them into corporate memory, and managing the integrity of the process safety systems hasfailed.
IChemEs Human Factors courses (p28). At the risk of sounding like an advert for IChemE services we are here after all to help advance the application of chemical and process engineering there are valuable tools available. You can turn to the Loss Prevention Bulletin (p54), a publication dedicated to sharing process safety lessons, and a suite of IChemE courses and conferences. Looking to the latter half of this issue, we see how engineering skills are breaking new ground in energy development. We review the ongoing revolution of shale gas production (p34); the development of greener surfactants that will enable industry to make more of the oil resources weve already discovered; and the world-changing possibilities of as-yet untapped gas hydrates (p42). Each offers an exciting glimpse at the opportunities ahead and asks us to look back and reflect that our future success is entwined with the ongoing development and application of rigorous safety practices. tce

Adam Duckett Editor, tce

Statements and opinions expressed in tce are the responsibility of the editor. Unless described as such, they do not represent the views or policies of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

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COMMENT
EDITORIAL Editor: Adam Duckett aduckett@icheme.org, +44 (0)1788 534469 Managing editor: Delyth Forsdyke dforsdyke@icheme.org, +44 (0)1788 534424 Senior reporter: Helen Tunnicliffe htunnicliffe@icheme.org, +44 (0)1788 534404 Staff reporter: Richard Jansen rjansen@icheme.org, +44 (0)1788 534426 PRODUCTION Graphic designer: Alex Revell arevell@icheme.org, +44 (0)1788 534421 Advertising: Lindsey Mawby tceadvertising@icheme.org, +44 (0)1788 534486

bad comedy timing

Sir, Ben Eltons new BBC1 sitcom, it turns out, isnt a comedy about health and safety afterall. It follows the home and working life of Gerald Wright, the head of a fictional council health and safety department. The programme is littered with things which have precious little to do with managing occupational risk such as the static seesaw, the horizontal slide and helmets for breastfeeding babies. This isnt health and safety as we know it. Of course, this is deliberate and intended for comic effect. The exaggeration and focus on trivial nonsense is calculated to make it funny. Its also peculiarly British when I am abroad there is genuine interest in real risks and the awful consequences of things going wrong, whereas in the UK we appear to be obsessed with elf and safety and trivia. There will doubtless be some people working in health and safety who will get exasperated by the show, feeling it demeans the work they do. And in a month when there have been significant industrial incidents around the world, it might to others feel like bad timing as well as bad taste. I doubt Ill watch the remaining five episodes. Not because its wrong about health and safety or I object on principle, but because sadly its not actually that funny. Blackadder this is not! Judith Hackitt, FIChemE Chair of Britains Health & Safety Executive

The industry can support millions of families across Southeast Asia but I fear this is at risk unless we have a more balanced debate about the effects ofplantations.
new plantations in Kalimantan Borneo and Sumatra. The workers resettle their families in the plantations and were seeing industry install modern amenities alongside new housing that includes medical clinics, modern schooling, water and electricity. For most of the children growing up in these rural communities, it provides a far better standard of living than they would otherwise have and better future prospects. Through education, the children have a better future and are able to go to university and secure better jobs. This story has been repeated many times in Malaysia where we have seen the development of the palm oil plantations lift people out of poverty. The industry can support millions of families across Southeast Asia but I fear this is at risk unless we have a more balanced debate about the effects of plantations. I believe the discussion should include the often ignored facts that expansion isnt solely into virgin forest which as mentioned above is limited by the authorities but also has seen millions of hectares of old rubber and agricultural plantations converted too. As we all know, science and engineering has negative and positive effects. I feel the debate in Europe remains skewed too heavily towards the former and risks damaging the latter. BP Chow, FIChemE Chair of IChemEs Malaysia board

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cant see the people for thetrees

Sir, The palm oil industry has a bad reputation in Europe where its portrayed as a destructive force, replacing virgin rainforest with plantations. It has of course expanded but the government has pledged to preserve 50% of its forests (from 55% coverage today) and this is considerably higher than the current coverage of 20% in the UK and 30% in Germany. Im concerned that the negative press the palm oil industry receives in Europe which I believe is in part influenced by domestic biodiesel players with a vested interest in protecting their market share of production from rape seed oil could slow the important socio-economic impacts that the palm oil industry is bringing to the likes of Malaysia and Indonesia. Few in Europe have been told that the expansion of the industry has led workers to migrate from densely populated regions such as the island of Java to live and work in
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Letters continued on page 4 >

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COMMENT
fuel-powered vehicles as to work on them mechanics require special certification. Operating costs for electric vehicles (in km per kWh) are much lower than for fuel vehicles (in km/l) despite the long recharge time. Nevertheless, it would take many, many kilometres of travel to offset the other costs. Finally, there is the environmental aspect. Yes, fuel-powered vehicles do emit CO2 while electric-powered vehicles do not. Electricity generation is not, however, free of CO2 emissions. Instead of each fuel-powered vehicle emitting CO2 wherever it may travel, electric power generation occurs at fixed sites and plenty of CO2 is emitted. Engineers know that perpetual motion is not possible; any energy conversion must be less than 100%: electricity/power generation is, generally, much below 100%. As the Joint Transport Research Centre in Paris, France noted: The conclusions of this report [Electric Vehicles: A Tentative Economic and Environmental Evaluation] are not encouraging for the electric car The electric car appears to be a gamble on the part of producers and governments. Desmond Harvey Mobile, US

intuitive Shams
Sir, The article on the 100 MW Shams concentrated solar power facility in Abu Dhabi (tce 862, p22) came to my notice 24 hours after I had been writing about it for a book which is in preparation. I benefited greatly from comparing the article with what I had myself just written. In particular, I noted the area given for the facility is 2.5 km2. A paper presented by expert Francisco Luque at a solar conference last year gave a value of 6 105 m2 (0.6 km2) for the mirror aperture or solar field aperture area. Broadly speaking then, about a quarter of the total area is occupied by heat transfer plant. This is quite intuitive. JC Jones, FIChemE Aberdeen, UK

innovative rebuttal
Sir, In tce 862, you published a letter from Mr Plumb bemoaning the reluctance of Big Pharma to change from tablets to other forms of liquid-based remedies. Tablets are simple and convenient to use. They provide an accurately-measured dosage of the active ingredient in a convenient, portable package, and can be designed to protect unstable medications or disguise unpalatable ingredients. A lot of medicines are unsuitable for administration by the oral route and can be taken sublingually and absorbed through the oralmucous membrane while others are administered in droplet form and of course we have injectables. This brings to mind my polio shot, which consisted of some drops on a sugar cube that was taken orally. It was quite tasty. I suggest that rather than being trapped in the 20th century, the pharmaceutical industry, restricted as it is, has been rather innovative in developing drug delivery. Kiven Kiersey Sligo, Ireland

< Continued from page 2

the not-so-positive charge

Sir, In response to Mr Brooks letter (tce 861) about the attractive features of electric and hybrid cars, Id like to redress the balance and mention some of the drawbacks. First, the battery weighs around 450 kg (unless using a lithium ion unit, which costs about ten times as much); the cost is equivalent to about 25% of an electric car; the battery life is about four years (so a battery might be rented at high price from a vendor); vehicle range between battery charges is 50150 miles (80240 km); and time to recharge fully can be eight hours. Next are capital and maintenance costs. An electric vehicle costs around 2530% more than a comparable-sized fuel-powered vehicle, while hybrid may be at least 50% more. Maintenance costs for vehicles with electric power are much higher than for

I suggest rather than being trapped in the 20th century, the pharmaceutical industry, restricted as it is, has been rather innovative in developing drug delivery.

Send your letters under 300 words if you can by email to letters@icheme.org or by post to tce, Davis Building, Railway Terrace, Rugby, CV21 3HQ, UK. The editor reserves the right to edit all letters.

www.tcetoday.com may 2013

EU fails to bolster carbon market

European lawmakers vote down efforts to buoy carbon price and drive green investment See p6

Chevron criticised for Richmond fire

CSB says incident began because staff failed to follow company rules and escalated the problem See p11

. . . Sabic cuts European jobs p6 . . . Browse LNG investment halted p13 . . . Wilton biofuels plant shuts again p14 . . .

International news

Explosion devastates Texan town

Blast at fertiliser plant kills over a dozen and flattens nearby buildings
A HUGE explosion at a US fertiliser plant has left at least 14 people dead and more than 100 injured, in the countrys deadliest industrial accident since the Texas City refinery explosion. The blast struck the small, rural town of West, which lies close to the Texan city of Waco, on the evening of 17 April. The first anyone knew of the danger was when a blaze broke out at the West Fertilizer Company plant on the northern edge of the town. Firefighters rushed to the scene, but when they arrived they realised that the chemicals stored on site could explode, and began frantically evacuating the area. Soon after, the plant detonated. The blast shredded nearby buildings and sent an enormous mushroom cloud billowing into the sky, exploding with so much force that it was picked up by US Geological Survey stations as equivalent to a magnitude 2.1 earthquake. Speaking in the early hours of 18 April, State Trooper DL Wilson of the Texas Department of Public Safety compared the scene to images of war-torn Iraq, or the site of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing. An apartment complex close to the site had been reduced to a skeleton of steel girders and brokenglass. Though the exact cause of the blast is still under official investigation by the US Chemical Safety Board, IChemE Loss Prevention Panel member Ken Patterson tells tce that the size and force of the explosion shown in videos captured by members of the public is in line with ammonium nitrate detonation, rather than a gaseous ammonia explosion. The reports Ive seen speak of 20 t of anhydrous ammonia on the site, which I would guess they use to make ammonium nitrate fertiliser, he says. My guess and its an absolute guess is that they had stacks of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, and it was one or more of those that exploded. Explosion prevention expert and head of IChemEs Pharmaceuticals Special Interest Group Keith Plumb, however, says that the explosion may instead have been caused when the blaze heated a tank of anhydrous ammonia, causing the vapour to expand and leak out through safety valves. This could then form a huge cloud of ammonia, which when mixed with air can explode. This, he adds, could have also set off the ammonium nitrate stored on the site. One of the most common fertilisers used, ammonium nitrate can explode violently when heated or ignited. Explosions at BASFs Oppau plant in Germany (1921) and Texas City in the US (1947) each killed several hundred people, and as recently as 2001 the Toulouse explosion in France killed 31. Ammonium nitrate is pretty much the most devastating industrial chemical used in Europe and North America, says Patterson. Its been involved in the most devastating industrial explosions in Europe since the Second World War. He adds, however, that: Some 99.99% of the millions of tons handled every year are handled safely, and fertilise crops and give us much higher yields than we would otherwise get. But if treated improperly, its a very devastating explosive.

Flickr/ k_unit

may 2013

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EPA/ Larry W Smith

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NEWS

EU lawmakers fail to boost carbon price

Vote is historic failure and may fatally damage ETS as efforts in Asia Pacific gather pace
THE EUs flagship carbon trading scheme has suffered a serious setback after lawmakers voted against a plan to bolster the ailing price of carbon. Launched in 2008, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) requires energy-intensive industry across the bloc to buy permits to cover each ton of carbon emitted. Too many permits have been issued, depressing the price of carbon and making it cheaper to pollute than invest in greener technology. In 2008, the carbon price was around 30/t (US$39/t) but has recently been trading at around3/t. In April, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) rejected plans to boost permit prices by holding back the number of permits due to be released from auctions in the coming two years so-called back-loading . The proposal was voted down by 334 votes to 315 with more than 60 abstentions, and will now return to the European Parliaments environment committee for further consideration. Last year a select group of industry players including GE, Shell, and Statoil urged EU members and other stakeholders to support back-loading. Responding to the result, Shells chief climate officer, David Hone tells tce: This is clearly disappointing, but we need the environmental committee to react before we draw final conclusions. EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard says that she regrets the decision and that the Commission remains convinced that back-loading would help to restore confidence in the EU ETS. Andrew Furlong, IChemEs director of policy, tells tce that without consistent and effective carbon pricing, emission control simply will not happen. Balancing long-term environmental gain against financial impact in the near term is a tough political call, but Europe flunked it today and the ETS may be fatally damaged as a result, he says. Unless there is a robust mechanism to compensate for the cost of each ton of carbon abated its game over for CCS and a wide range of carbon management technologies, he adds. Greenpeaces EU climate policy director Joris den Blanken describes the result as a historic failure. He believes that the carbon market in its present form will not prevent cheaper, more polluting coal-fired plants from being built. While the EUs scheme is listing, there are positive moves in China to use carbon markets to reduce emissions. Shenzhen and Shanghai have announced that schemes will be launched in June to cover their energyintensive industries; with Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Hubei, and Tianjin also set to launch their own this year. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that Chinas push to reduce emissions per economic unit by 45% before the close of the decade will lead to regulation of 800m1bn t of emissions by 2015, making it the largest cap-and-trade programme outside of the EU. Meanwhile Australian climate change minister Greg Combet and Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of Chinas National Development and Reform Commission, have agreed to work together to develop Chinas carbon trading plans. Combet says that he hopes to work towards creating an ETS for the whole Asia-Pacific region. Ultimately, he adds, the move should build momentum towards an international carbon market.

Gazprom signs shale exploration deal with Shell

RUSSIAN gas giant Gazprom is collaborating with Shell to produce shale oil in western Siberia and develop reserves on the Arctic shelf. The partners have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly explore for and develop shale oil in the KhantyMansiysk Autonomous Area a region about the size of mainland France and home to most of Russias oil production. According to Gazprom, the deal will provide new technology and shale development skills to Russias oil industry. Over the past year both Gazprom and fellow Russian energy giant Rosneft have signed a series of partnerships with companies experienced in shale oil and gas production, trading technology and experience for access to Russias huge but largely undeveloped Arctic reserves. Shell and Gazprom already work together on several conventional oil developments in Russia, including the Sakhalin II and Salym projects.

Sabic cuts more than 1,000 jobs in Europe

SAUDI chemicals giant Sabic has announced that it is cutting more than 1,000 jobs across its European operations, blaming an ongoing drop in demand across the region. The company will close down some assets across the region, though it has not yet revealed which ones they will be. It has already started talks with various works councils and trade unions and says that around a third of those to lose their jobs will be contractors, with the rest being employees. In a statement, the company blames the slow growth in the chemical industry on a drop in consumer demand for houses, cars and appliances and a drop in infrastructure investment. At the same time, competition for chemicals production has intensified from other regions including the US and Asia. Sabic has confirmed that 110 of the cuts will come from its Wilton, UK, petrochemicals operation. The sites manufacturing director, Mike Ducker, says other jobs may be offered at other Sabic operations.

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CAREERS NEWS tce

GSK gets creative with R&D funding

Will bankroll start-ups via Avalon
UK-BASED pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has launched a US$495m biotech start-up partnership with investment firm Avalon Ventures as it tries new ways to develop drugs. The companies plan to bankroll a host of new drug firms over the next three years. Each start-up will be focussed on early-stage development of treatments. The move comes as established pharmaceutical firms such as GSK look to explore fresh new methods for developing drugs. The triedand-tested route of internal development has become increasingly expensive in recent years, as companies typically meet with several failures for each product that eventually reaches the market. We are committed to finding creative ways to support academia and the early-stage research that is vital to the success of our industry, says Moncef Slaoui, chair of GSKs R&D division. Under the terms of the deal, GSK will contribute the vast majority of the funding some US$465m as well as R&D support for the new companies. Avalon, which specialises in the life science and technology sectors, will identify promising new ideas in need of funding, as well as supply the remaining US$30m. Avalon says that while the technologies can come from anywhere, the new companies will have to be based in its home city of San Diego, US. GSK will have the option to buy successful ventures from Avalon, which will stay in control of any that GSK passes up.

ConocoPhillips cools its plans for drilling in the Arctic

ENERGY major ConocoPhillips has pulled out of plans to begin drilling for oil in Alaskas Chukchi Sea, blaming uncertainty over US government regulations. The companys decision represents yet another blow to supporters of offshore oil production in the Arctic and follows in the wake of a disastrous drilling season for rival energy major Shell. ConocoPhillips plans had called for exploration drilling to begin in 2014. Without any certainty about potential regulatory changes, the company says that it would not be prudent to spend substantial amounts of money to preserve its 2014 drilling rights. It is thought to have spent more than US$650m on its Arctic programme since the start of 2012. Once new rules are finalised, the company will re-evaluate its Chukchi Sea drilling plans.

Novartis loses landmark Indian patent case

INDIAS Supreme Court (pictured) has dismissed an appeal from Novartis for a patent for its cancer drug Glivec, allowing generics firms to continue to produceit. Legaleagle86/ en.wikipedia Glivec or imatinib mesylate first developed by Novartis in 1991, is used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia. Until 2005, India did not allow patents on medicines or foods and allowed generic production of drugs that were patent-protected elsewhere until it was forced to change its laws to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations. Novartis was not granted a patent for Glivec as the drugs development preceded the 2005 change in the law. Novartis had argued that the beta crystal form of Glivec, developed after 2005, should be given patent protection, as it is more effective and therefore qualifies as a new invention. Novartis says that the courts decision discourages innovative drug discovery and points out that the drug is patent-protected in 40 other countries. Generics companies can produce imatinib mesylate at a cost 90% lower than that charged by Novartis, allowing poorer patients, not just those in India, to access the drug. This has been a key part of the criticism levelled at major drugs firms which fight to secure patents in India. Novartis argues that 95% of patients prescribed Glivec in India receive it for free anyway under its access programmes. Indian generics firm Natco Pharma led the legal challenge. Finance director Bhaskar Narayana told Indias Economic Times that the courts decision was a unique victory of humanity over commercial consideration. The company has been producing Glivec since 2003.

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tce

EUROPE

EU annouces hunt to find substitutes for rare materials

Network calls for parties to help find replacements for critical feedstocks
sectors as diverse as chemicals, construction, and aerospace. The project is co-ordinated by the UKs Chemistry Innovation Knowledge Transfer Network (CIKTN) and will arrange a series of workshops and set up an online portal to identify substitutes. The outcomes will be developed into a set of policy recommendations starting in October and will be presented to the European Commission. The network is inviting interested parties to register their interest in gaining access funding, working together on substitution, and raising public awareness about the supply of critical materials. Project co-ordinator Catherine Joce says: The innovation network will provide an identity and focus for researchers and businesses with an interest in substitution, drawing together a community which contains representatives from different disciplines and sectors together with a focus on substitution for the first time. To register your interest in the network, visit: www.criticalrawmaterials.eu
Molycorp

THE EU has launched a network to help identify and develop substitutes for raw materials that are difficult to secure but crucial to the success of European business. The network known as CRM_InnoNet will bring together engineers, scientists, academics, industry bodies and policymakers to search for substitutes to 14 raw materials that the European Commission

has identified as economically important. These include rare earth metals that are essential for clean energy and weapons technology, and cobalt and tantalum for fuel cells and energy storage. A disruption in the supply of these elements caused by natural rarity or the majority of production occurring outside of the EU would have damaging consequences for businesses in

Cluster fronts effort to imagine industrial park of the future

THE UKs North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) has announced that it is leading an EU-funded project to identify how to improve the integration of future industrial parks and make them more sustainable. The two-year, 2m (US$2.6m) Locimap project will identify ways to substantially improve energy and resource efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and by taking an holistic view of the dynamics of site and park operations will suggest new supply-chain links to help optimise performance. Stan Higgins, CEO of NEPIC, says while clustering of businesses in industrial parks is nothing new, in most instances not enough thought has been put into maximising the efficiency of all the operations. For example [a] park with 20 industrial units may have 20 steam-raising boilers, 20 heating systems, 20 electrical sub stations, 20 warehouses, 20 security systems and so on. When you see it written down like this the opportunities for improved efficiency and symbiosis become obvious, he says. By providing advice on how to create a low carbon base, NEPIC hopes to help grow and revitalise EU industry. The project team anticipates that substantial advantages to European producers could come from the migration, over time, towards more completely integrated manufacturing, centering on concentrated activities in new industrial parks structures, NEPICsays. Another important part of the project involves indentifying how to best integrate industrial parks with communities, providing locally-sourced heat and power as well as employment. The 13 members of the project include BASF Espaola, Cemex UK, and the European Chemical Site Promotion Platform based in the Netherlands.

CCS competition relaunched

THE EU has re-opened its funding competition for CCS projects, after the first round failed to find support for a single project. Member states will now pull together proposals from companies interested in submitting to the competition. The NER300 programme so called because it relies on the sale of 300m carbon credits to raise funding gave 1.2bn (US$1.5bn) to 23 renewable energy projects in the first round last year. However, the big news was the failure of any CCS projects to win money. All but one of the projects pulled out of the first round of funding after failing to secure the necessary co-funding from their national governments, although
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ArcelorMittals low carbon steel project pulled out due to technical reasons. The programme has also been affected by the fall in carbon prices that have led it to raise far less than the 5bn that was initially estimated. The scheme has some 100m credits left to sell to fund the second round, along with 288m left over from the first. This second round offers all CCS and innovative renewable energy technologies a new chance of applying for funding, including those that were not awarded funding in the previous round, says EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard. We hope to have a full range of low-carbon projects operational by 2018.

may 2013

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ASIA

Officials call for better safety measures for Asian industries

Chinese leader says improved safety still falls short of public expectation
SAFETY officials from both China and Malaysia have spoken about the need for increased safety in Southeast Asias chemicals industries. Speaking at the Hazards Asia Pacific symposium in Malaysia, Haoshui Wang, director general of Chinas State Administration of Work Safetys (SAWS) hazardous chemicals division, set out the significant safety challenges faced in the country. Among these were the large-scale, intensive nature of Chinese plants and the accelerating urbanisation around existing facilities. He also pointed to the weakness of overall work safety infrastructure in Chinese chemical production, and the lack of process safety professionals in China. The total number of deaths caused by hazardous chemical accidents national-wide has been decreased from 277 in 2006 committed to high standards of responsibility for process safety governance, he said. Whats more, with near instant communications, the smallest incident in a chemical plant, any accident in transporting chemicals, and every permit application for a new installation attracts colossal media attention. This in turn triggers negative public reaction which can lead to public outrage. Abdullah explained that the regions booming chemicals industry needs to take action, saying that it should adopt a set of high standards that take into account the views of the public and other stakeholders as well as industry itself. We cannot and must not leave anything to chance, he said. The consequence of all this is simple. If the chemical industry wants to keep its licence to operate, it must improve its HSE performance.

to 99 in 2012, indicating that China has been working hard to ensure the chemical industry to be safe and its development to be sustainable, said Wang. We recognise that the total number of accidents in Chinese chemical industry accidents is still high, and there is a big gap between the expectations of the people in China and current safety status. At the same event, Abd Hapiz Abdullah, chair of the Chemical Industries Council of Malaysia

(CICM), told senior managers in the region that they must take responsibility for health, safety and environmental (HSE) standards or risk losing their licence to operate. He explained to delegates that the regions chemicals industry is in the midst of enormous growth, and claimed that process safety standards have never been more important. Now more than ever, there is stronger emphasis on leaders in the chemical industry who are

Shell boosts output at Jurong Island chemicals complex

SHELL is to build new production plants for high-purity ethylene oxide and ethoxylates at its Jurong Island site in Singapore as it seeks to meet growing regional demand for detergents. The new plants include a high-purity ethylene oxide (HPEO) purification column with an initial 140,000 t/y capacity, boosting existing output at the site from 65,000 t/y. Two new ethoxylation units with a combined 140,000 t/y capacity of will lift output from its current level of 40,000 t/y. The demand for alcohol ethoxylates in Asia is expected to increase at approximately 67% annually over the next five
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Japanese researchers find significant rare earths deposit

HIGH concentrations of rare earths have been found just a few metres below the seabed near Minami-Tori-shima, a Japaneseowned coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo Universitys Yasuhiro Kato and his team have previously found deposits of rare earth metals on the ocean floor, but in international waters near Hawaii and Tahiti. The new discovery, made with the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), could allow Japan to break Chinas stronghold on global rare earth supplies. The researchers say that securing stable rare earth supplies is an urgent task for Japan . The deposits were found a few metres below the seabed at water depths of 5,6005,800 m, at concentrations much higher than those found in Chinas onshore deposits. Kato told the Telegraph that a single shipment of earth from the site could meet the rare earth needs of Japans high tech sectors for a year.

years, says Graham vant Hoff, executive vice president of Shell Chemicals. The key driver for this is the move by consumers from laundry powder and soap bars to liquid detergent and liquid soaps, especially in major markets like China, India and Southeast Asia. The new investments also include product tanks and a HPEO pipeline grid that will supply so-called over-thefence customers. Following Shells statement, Belgian chemicals company Solvay announced that it will build a large-scale alkoxylation facility to turn HPEO bought from the site into key monomers for the production of surfactants.

may 2013

Jeremy Brooks

CAREERS AMERICAS tce

Seven die in confined space at Corona brewery
SEVEN workers have been killed in a confined spaces accident at Grupo Modelos Mexico City brewery. Grupo Modelo, Mexicos largest brewer, tells tce that the seven workers died on 7 April whilst carrying out cleaning and maintenance work in a confined area of a tank, though no further details were given. Local press reports suggest that the deceased were overcome by toxic fumes. Four of the dead were reportedly contractors, while the remaining three are thought to be Grupo Modelo employees who died during a rescue attempt. According to reports in Mexican newspaper La Razn, investigators from the labour ministry, district attorney general and the district public security ministry, La Secretara de Seguridad Pblica del Distrito Federal (SSPDF) are looking into the cause of the accident. We are carrying out the corresponding investigation to understand the cause of the accident, said Grupo Modelo spokeswoman Jennifer Shelley, adding: Cervecera Modelo regrets these events and will support the affected families. The brewery produces the popular Corona brand of beer. AB InBev is currently in the process of taking over Grupo Modelo, after reaching a US$20bn deal in June 2012 to buy the half that it does not already own. A major barrier to the deal was cleared in early April when the two companies agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) that challenged the proposed takeover. AB InBev announced shortly after the settlement that it expects to complete the deal in June.
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CSB criticises Chevron for refinery fire

Staff were engulfed in highly-flammable vapour and lucky to survive after ignoring internal safety rules
THE US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has heavily criticised Chevron over the fire at its Richmond refinery last August, saying the accident could have been avoided if staff had followed company rules. The team discovered a leak in the crude processing unit and tried to repair it without shutting down the operation as required. Over 15,000 people sought medical treatment in the wake of the ensuing blaze, which left a thick plume of smoke hanging over the densely-populated San Francisco Bay Area. TheCSB says that 19 workers at the plant narrowly escaped death or serious injury as they were engulfed in [] highly flammable vapour. The CSB investigators found that the leaking pipe had suffered from severe sulphur corrosion, losing around 90% of its original thickness. Around the rupture, they reported, the pipe was about 40% thinner than a dime the thinnest American coin or half the thickness of a UK penny. Much of the damage had been caused by an 85% increase in the sulphur content of the fuels being processed at the facility between the pipeworks installation in 1984 and the day of the accident. Although the sulphidation corrosion hazard is well known [], the company unfortunately overlooked multiple warnings including other accidents and its own internal recommendations to replace the pipe with an inherently safer alloy, says CSB chair Rafael Moure-Eraso. The CSB criticised Chevrons emergency response efforts. Under the companys own rules the crude unit should have been shut down before the problem was investigated, but instead workers, managers and Chevron firefighters tried to clamp it shut while still in operation. The CSB believes that in a bid to remove insulation around the pipe, the workers poked a hole through the already-weakened metal. Flammable vapour sprayed out from beneath the insulation and caught fire, and although this was put out quickly, liquid began spraying from the pipe. Before the unit could be shut down, the pipe tore itself open, releasing a huge vapour cloud that engulfed the workers. The firefighters and operators struggled to escape through the dense hydrocarbon cloud, unable to see, says the CSB. They had to feel their way out, some on their hands and knees. Two minutes after the vapour cloud formed, it ignited. A firefighter in a fire engine was able to escape through the wall of fire in full protective gear. The CSB has recommended that Chevron hires a team of experts to review the companys refineries across the US for any potentially damaged equipment.

Fire injures 12 at Texas ExxonMobil refinery

A FIRE that broke out during maintenance work at ExxonMobils Beaumont refinery in Texas, US, has injured 12 contractors. The fire began on 17 April as employees of contracting firms Signature Industrial Services, Brock Services and KT Maintenance were working on a shutdown processing unit possibly as they conducted welding work on a hydrotreater heat exchanger although ExxonMobil has not confirmed these press reports. ExxonMobil says the fire was quickly controlled by on-site emergency response personnel and it has started an investigation into the incident.

may 2013

tce

MALAYSIA

Fatal explosion wrecks Penang oleochemicals factory

Tragic incident at Peter Greven site kills one, seriously burns four
A DEVASTATING explosion at an oleochemicals factory in Penang has killed one worker and injured four others. The explosion and subsequent fire occurred in a third-floor storeroom of a factory owned by German-based oleochemicals firm Peter Greven in the Prai Industrial Estate on 25 March, the New Straits Times reports. The technician who died, identified as 40-year-old Roslan Othman was found in the control room on the same floor with 50% burns. His four colleagues, named by the local fire department as Bahain Arsad, 49, Jamalludin Ismail, 39, K Ramis, 41, and Mustak Kamal, 35, also suffered severe burns and were taken to the Seberang Jaya Hospital for treatment. Fire and Rescue Department following an explosion and fire on the Prai Industrial estate offers a grim reminder of what happens when chemical process safety management breaks down, says IChemE director of policy Andy Furlong. Whilst the full details are not yet known it is clear that risk management was inadequate with catastrophic consequences for several families in the Seberang Jaya area. Meanwhile, process safety in Southeast Asia has been in the spotlight at IChemEs recent Hazards Asia Pacific symposium, held in Kuala Lumpur from 1618 April. Speakers including Haoshui Wang, director general of the hazardous chemicals division of Chinas State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), and Abd Hapiz Abdullah, chair of the Chemical Industries Council of Malaysia highlighted the number of accidents in the region and called for action to raise regional safety standards and meet public expectations (see p10).

assistant director Mohamadul Ehsan Mohd Zain said that seven fire engines and 48 personnel had rushed to the scene. It took 45 minutes to control the blaze and a Hazmat team was called in as a precaution. Around 80% of the factory, which produces stearates for the

Two dead in accident at Port Dickson waste plant

TWO workers have died following an accident at a hazardous waste recycling and disposal facility in Port Dickson. The men, K Segar, a Malaysian aged 42 and Khalil Abdul Mozaid, a 47-year-old Bangladeshi, were overcome by toxic fumes while transferring caustic soda from a tanker at a facility operated by UEM Environments hazardous waste recycling subsidiary Kualiti Alam. Early investigations found high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide gas near the accidentsite. The fumes may have originated from the hose that was disconnected from the tanker after the liquid caustic soda was transferred to the holding tank, the company told the Malaysia Star newspaper. The actual cause of death will be only determined once the post-mortem has been performed. A third worker from Malaysia was also injured in the accident. The Kualiti Alam plant is Malaysias first and only integrated hazardous waste plant, and has been in operation for 17 years. According to the company, the deaths are the first to have happened at the plant, which has been shut down since the accident. Malaysias Department of Environment, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), the police and the fire service are investigating the cause of the tragedy.

plastics, rubber, pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics industries, was destroyed. Investigations are ongoing, but initial findings suggest that chemicals reacted with some metals, Ehsan said. Malaysias Department of Occupational Safety & Health (DOSH) has also begun its investigation. DOSH director Mohd Anuar Embi said that his team has already identified key witnesses. The death of a worker

Saudi firm plans Malaysian polysilicon plant

SAUDI ARABIAS Project Management & Development Company (PMD) has announced plans to build a US$1.6bn polysilicon plant in Sarawak. The plant will be operated by PMDs Malaysian subsidiary, Cosmos Petroleum and Mining, and is scheduled to begin production in 2016. The company has told the Malaysia Star that the facility will be one of the biggest in Asia, and is part of the Sarawak state governments plan to take advantage of its growing energy resources. The project is in line with Sarawaks initiative of promoting green and sustainable energy solutions, PMD chair Majed Al-Ahmadi said in a statement, leading to further development of industrial base in the state. Polysilicon is mostly used by the photovoltaic solar industry, much of which is based in southeast Asia.

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may 2013

CAREERS AUSTRALASIA tce

Shell to sell Geelong Refinery
SHELL is planning to sell its last Australian refinery in Geelong, threatening the jobs of over 500 workers. It says that the sale forms part of a plan to concentrate on modern, large-scale refineries such as its Pulau Bukom refinery in Singapore, which processes 500,000 bbl/d compared to Geelongs 120,000 bbl/d. The company has not revealed how much it expects the plant to sell for, but says that it will be seeking a buyer who will show due care for employees. The plant is Shells only refinery still operating in Australia, as it converted its Clyde refinery in Sydney into an import terminal in 2011. Over the past decade, the country has seen around half of its refineries close or converted for other purposes as the industry shifts attention to booming markets in south east Asia. Shell Australias downstream vice president Andrew Smith insists that the company remains committed to its operations in the country.

Shell

Woodside shelves US$41bn LNG project

Planned site too costly; mulls floating alternative
WOODSIDE PETROLEUM has halted its proposed US$41bn Browse Basin LNG project offshore Western Australia as it seeks a profitable alternative to building an onshore processing facility at a troubled site in James Price Point. Rumours have circulated for months that Woodside wants to explore other options as skills shortages, the strong Australian dollar, and public opposition to building the processing plant at James Price Point close to aboriginal sacred sites have led to escalating costs and delays. Woodside says that an evaluation of the project has showed that the development would not deliver the required commercial returns, and has began consulting with its project partners on alternative ways to develop it. One of these, according to Woodside CEO Peter Coleman, is floating LNG technology. Other options could include a pipeline to existing LNG facilities and a smaller onshore option near James Price Point. Whether the authorities will allow Woodside to develop Browse as a floating project remains to be seen after Western Australia state premier Colin Barnett said the government would have to be nuts to allow onshore domestic construction jobs tobe lost to Asian shipbuilding yards.

ExxonMobil and BHP look to sea to process Scarborough gas

EXXONMOBIL and BHP Billiton have submitted plans to build the worlds largest floating LNG (FLNG) project to tap gas reserves in offshore Western Australia. The floating facility would treat gas from the Scarborough field, liquefy it, and transfer it to LNG tankers to ship it to market most likely to energy-hungry China, Japan, and South Korea. At 495 m long, the proposed vessel would be 7 m longer than Shells US$12bn Prelude project, which is expected to come onstream in 2016. In documents submitted to Australias environmental department, Exxon and BHP estimate that the first wells will be drilled in 2018 and 2019, with production beginning in 2020 at the earliest. The facility will produce 67m t/y of LNG compared to Preludes 5.3m t/y of condensates and LNG. Given the remote location of the Scarborough gas field and reservoir characteristics FLNG technology is currently deemed the most appropriate technology to develop the field, the document reveals. The firms are not expected to make an investment decision on their proposed facility until at least 2014.

Miner Arafura scraps rare earths plant as costs rise

AUSTRALIAN miner Arafura will save up to A$1bn (US$1bn) by moving a planned rare earths processing plant in Whyalla, South Australia, closer to its mine in the Northern Territory. The company blamed the need for change on the spiralling costs of carrying out a major engineering project in Australia and a fall in international rare earth prices. By moving the plant estimated to cost some A$2bn to the same site as its Nolans Bore mine, Arafura says it will save A$160m in up-front capital costs and around A$1.60 in operating costs for each kilogramme of rare earths produced. The company says that the move has only become possible after its drilling efforts around the mine uncovered an extensive aquifer system. It claims that it holds enough water to supply the plant without having to draw on already-tapped sources. When completed, the Arafura plant is expected to employ around 300 people and produce 20,000 t/y of rare earths vital components of hi-tech devices such as mobile phones and solarpanels.

may 2013

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tce

UNITED KINGDOM

Government launches nuclear strategy

National Nuclear Laboratory given wider remit
THE UK government has published a new industrial strategy for the nuclear sector, pledging to funnel more money into research as it paves the way for a new generation of reactors. In the strategy document, the government reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear energy, which it describes as essential to meeting its carbon emission targets. It confirmed plans to build at least 12 new nuclear reactors by 2030, which it says will support 40,000 new jobs. The new emphasis on R&D and industrial links will help propel UK companies into the international nuclear industry, which is estimated to be worth 1tn (US$1.51tn), rather than just the domestic market. As part of this plan, the UKs National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) will have its remit widened, giving it a more central role in advising the government on nuclear matters and in strategic research projects. It will take on responsibility for hosting a pair of new bodies focussed on R&D the Nuclear Innovation Research Advisory Board (NIRO), and the Nuclear Innovation Research Advisory Board (NIRAB). The NNL has been promised 15m for a series of research facilities at the Sellafied Site, the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire and The University of Manchesters Dalton Cumbrian Facility. The government has also committed to making a decision over commissioning work at the NNLs Central Laboratory in West Cumbria. Beyond the NNL, the government announced that it is keen to explore opportunities to back future reactor designs. This will include looking at the feasibility of launching a small modular reactor (SMR) R&D programme to ensure that the UK is a key partner of any new reactor design for the global market. We have some of the finest workers, research facilities and academics in the world. But we need to sharpen those competitive advantages to become a top-table nuclear nation, says business secretary Vince Cable.

State buys cheap gasi plant energy

THE UK government has agreed a novel long-term contract to buy electricity from a gasification plant being built by Air Products as it seeks to avoid the unpredictable price fluctuations of the short-term wholesale energy market. Air Products has declined to disclose the value of the 20year supply contract until the approval process for the 300m (US$459m) waste-to-energy facility in Teesside is finalised later this year. This is the beginning of a pioneering approach to how government uses its collective buying power and long-term demand to buy energy, says Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude. Its estimated that 84m will be saved over the life of the deal. Similar contracts will be considered over the coming five years and, if agreed, could lead to a significant increase in generating capacity and competition, which would help drive down energy prices, the government says. The 49 MW facility will gasify raw waste collected from local businesses and burn the syngas produced to generate electricity. The facility will be the second of its kind built by Air Products in Tees Valley with the first set to begin operation next year.

Queens ionic liquids win UK innovation prize

IONIC liquid technology, developed at Queens University Belfast has been voted as the British innovation most likely to shape the 21st century. The Initiative on Great British Past and Future Innovations was set up jointly by the Science Museum, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, among others. Ionic liquids have been hailed as super solvents because they can dissolve many different substances, are non-polluting and do not form vapour clouds. There are currently more than 100 researchers at Queens University Ionic Liquid Laboratories (QUILL) Research Centre investigating the potential of ionic liquids (pictured luminescing in tubes, above). Jim Swindall, co-director of QUILL, says: The liquids dissolve almost everything, from elements such as sulphur and phosphorus [that traditionally require harmful solvents] to polymers, including biomass. Ionic liquids are already being used by Petronas in a process to remove mercury from natural gas, he adds.

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CAREERS UNITED KINGDOM

tce

UK unveils fresh oil and gas plans

Ex-military engineers to join industry
THE UKs flagging energy industry is set to secure billions of pounds of future investment, the government has claimed after it unveiled a new oil and gas strategy. The government says that it will focus on tax certainty, supply chain growth and bridging a growing skills gap which it labelled one of the biggest challenges facing the oil and gas industry. According to government figures, over the next five years or so, oil and gas companies in the UK will have to find an additional 15,000 mid-career engineers to replace those retiring or moving up to more senior positions. This is much more than can be provided by incoming graduates and trainees from within the country. In order to help fill this gap, the government has proposed a new source of recruits ex-military personnel with a background in engineering. It says it will work with industry to form a national scheme for retraining former military personnel, allowing them to turn their skills to the oil and gas industry. Ex-military personnel often have the skills the industry looks for and have successfully transitioned into the sector, the government says. As part of the same effort, Newcastle University has been awarded 7m (US$10.6m) to establish a subsea and offshore engineering R&D centre, named Neptune. The government says this should encourage advances in technology, which will enable industry to better understand complex reservoirs, reduce drilling costs, improve efficiency and enhance production. Beyond bridging the skills gap, ministers have pledged to maintain a stable tax regime for the UKs oil and gas industry, including fresh tax breaks on decommissioning introduced during the latest national budget. They say that they will also work on encouraging UK industry to supply more of the equipment used in energy exploration and production, claiming that this is the area where the country is most lacking in fabrication facilities. An important part of this strategy is how we can develop the UK supply chain. I want us to consider what barriers are stopping British companies bidding for and winning work in the North Sea, says business secretary Vince Cable. Shortly after the strategy was announced, confidence in North Sea investment was further buoyed when BP announced plans to invest US$500m in its Clair field, west of the Shetland Island thought to contain as much as 8bn boe. BP says it will launch a two-year appraisal programme, drilling at least five wells, increasing to 812, depending on the results. Industry group Oil & Gas UK says that the strategy is one more step in the right direction for the government. Only last month, the group reported that it expects investment in the North Sea to hit a 30-year high in 2013.
www.tcetoday.com 15 Military engineers will be invited to demob to oil rigs

Ensus closes Wilton biofuels plant for a third time

ENSUS troubled Wilton biofuels plant has stopped production for the third time in as many years, blaming a poor UK wheat harvest and unfavourable market conditions. The company does not yet have a schedule for restarting its 300m (US$460m) plant the largest biofuels facility in Europe but maintains that it is going through a pause in production rather than a full shutdown. As part of this, it has pledged to keep paying (in full) its 100 or so workers while the plant is offline. Ensus remains confident in the long-term future of the business and we believe it is critical that the UK continues to support the use of high quality sustainable biofuels, says CEO Peter Sopp. Ensus is able to supply genuine environmentally sustainable ethanol to satisfy this need but unfortunately market conditions are working against us at the moment. Despite Sopps confidence, its hard to ignore the troubled plants record of shutdowns. The first of these came only a few weeks after opening in early 2010, after a flood of complaints from residents of nearby Teesside about its strong, unpleasant smell. Though this was soon fixed, in May 2011 the plant was once again taken offline in response to poor market conditions across Europe, which Ensus blamed on cheap US governmentsubsidised imports. The closure was initially scheduled to last only four months, but dragged on for well over a year. This time, the company has pointed to the poor 2012 wheat harvest in the UK, which it says has had an adverse impact on the quality and price of the crop as a feedstock. As well as this, Ensus claims that the European ethanol market continues to lag behind the level it expects. The biorefinery can convert 1m t/y of animal-grade wheat, of which there is a surplus in the UK, into fuel-grade alcohol, animal feed and carbon dioxide, which is sold to the food and drink industry while the animal feed reduces the UKs reliance onimports.

may 2013

Mazen Saggar/UNEP

tce

AFRICA Putin offers help to SA nuclear industry

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has promised to help South Africa develop its nuclear industry. Putin and South African president Jacob Zuma held a Russian-South African summit at the first BRICS summit in Durban in late March. South Africa currently has two 900 MW reactors at the Koeberg nuclear power station in the south of the country. Operated by Eskom, it produces just 5% of South Africas energy, but at the Nuclear Africa 2013 conference also held in March deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe hailed nuclear energy as an ideal, low-carbon alternative to coal which will bring significant economic benefits to local industry. Putin told news agency RIA Novosti that support would be given in extraction of raw materials, construction of nuclear power plants and research reactors, design and domestic production of nuclear power equipment with Russian credit support.

Shell begins work to pull out of Ogoniland

Decommissioning efforts follow critical UNEP report
SHELLS Nigerian joint venture has begun to take stock of its oil infrastructure in Ogoniland ahead of efforts to decommission assets in the stricken region (pictured). A UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report from 2011 revealed that inadequate maintenance of assets and illegal oil bunkering had caused widespread environmental damage in Nigerias Ogoniland region, polluting soil, groundwater and waterways with levels of contamination in some cases far in excess of recommended standards. Among a number of recommendations to help clean up the area, UNEP called on Shells venture with the Nigerian government (SPDC) to conduct a comprehensive review of its assets in the region and develop a decommissioning plan. In a statement emailed to tce, SPDC says it consulted local communities and began bush clearing late last year and is now identifying the assets that its responsible for including flow stations, compressors, gas plants and pipelines. The intention is to determine the state of our facilities since we suspended operations in the area in 1993, and determine how best to decommission them, says Mutiu Sunmonu, SPDC managing director. Sunmonu adds that he wants to make it clear that the exercise is not an attempt to secretly resume oil production in Ogoniland, giving some indication of the levels of mistrust that locals feel towards the oil company, which has operated across Nigeria for more than 50 years.

BP plans ZAR5bn spend in South Africa, Mozambique

BP WILL invest more than ZAR5bn (US$545m) over the next five years upgrading facilities in South Africa and Mozambique, Iain Conn, the companys chief executive for refining and marketing has told reporters. According toBusiness Day,Conn said that half would be spent upgrading the Sapref refinery in Durban, which BP runs as a 50:50 joint venture with Shell. The 190,000 bbl/d refinery accounts for 35% of South Africas refining capacity. According to Conn, the output will not be affected by the upgrade, which will instead ensure that fuel meets more stringent clean fuel specifications that are being introduced in South Africa. BP will spend ZAR1bn to build and upgrade fuel terminals in both Mozambique and South Africa, including a new 60m l terminal outside Johannesburg, according toFox Business, with the rest of the funding pot spent on building 120 new retail outlets in South Africa and upgrading 65 existing outlets. In total, Mozambique will receive ZAR800m of investment, with around ZAR4.7bn invested in South Africa. This investment is designed to improve safety, customer experience, operational efficiency, help with government to improve energy security, and enable the transition towards cleaner fuels, Conn said.

Algeria outlines plans to double refining capacity

ALGERIA is planning to build up to six new refineries within the next five years to more than double its current refining capacity of 700,000 bbl/d. At state-owned energy company Sonatrachs 9th scientific and technical seminar, a government advisor read a statement on plans from energy and mining minister Yousfi Youcef, reports the official Algrie Presse Service. This increase of the refining capacity will allow [us to meet] domestic demands
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until 2040 and [develop the] petrochemical industry near these refineries, he said. Sonatrach has reportedly budgeted US$15bn for the project, which comes as part of a much wider US$80bn effort to grow the countrys oil industry. Sonatrach will also intensify its exploration activities in Algeria. Algeria currently produces around 1.9m bbl/d of oil, and has Africas largest proven reserves after Libya and Nigeria.

may 2013

CAREERS EDUCATION tce

Monash launches leadership programme in Malaysia

Students will be invited to develop the skills needed to front industry
MONASH UNIVERSITY has officially launched a new Engineering Leadership Programme (ELP) at its Sunway campus in Bandar Sunway, Malaysia. High-performing undergraduate engineering students will be identified and invited to join the oneyear course. Participants will learn the soft skills necessary to develop future careers in industrial leadership, including team-building, communication skills and interpersonal skills. The programme is designed to stimulate and inspire these future leaders, taking them out of their comfort zone whilst providing a supportive learning environment. The 2013 ELP participants are all second-year engineering students from the chemical, mechanical, and electrical and computer systems engineering disciplines. In the 2013 batch, nine of the 22 participants are chemical engineering students. There are 11 mentors who volunteer their time on the ELP course and share their knowledge and experience with the group. Shell is the major sponsor of the 2013 programme and has contributed three mentors. Chemical engineering student Helen Lim Yau Wei says: Malaysias oil and gas industry is going quite well and billions of ringgits are being invested in this industry. This shows Malaysia has the potential to be the regional hub of the oil and gas industry. I hope that this ELP programme can help me to become a part of this industry in the future. Fellow chemical engineer Jason Yau Wai Xian adds that the ELP is a golden opportunity for students to gain an insight into industry. A video of the 2013 Monash ELP participants can be viewed at http://youtu.be/Nf8QXHyDsxk

London calling for students to help green the capital

LONDON mayor Boris Johnson has launched his 2013 Low Carbon Prize a Dragons Den style competition to fund the development of innovative ideas put forward by local students to cut the capitals carbon emissions. The 20,000 (US$30,600) competition is open to all students at further and higher education institutes across London, and includes a chance to be shortlisted for a paid internship with competition sponsor Siemens. The judges will be looking for original ideas that can use the funding to begin cutting emissions in the city by June 2014. This could include designing a prototype for a new technology or conducting a pilot project to explore how to make existing activities more efficient. The finalists will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges that includes TVs Dragons Den entrepreneur Deborah Meaden, fashion designer and environmentalist Dame Vivienne Westwood, Science Museum director Ian Blatchford, world-leading architect Sir Terry Farrell, and politician and environmentalist Zac Goldsmith. Johnson says: The green economy is booming in London and I want young Londoners to harness their ingenuity and seize their chance to get involved. Help us find the next big idea, not only to slash our carbon emissions but to provide an exciting boost to Londons green economy. Meaden adds: The potential of Londons green economy is huge, and it is vital that we seek solutions that reduce Londons wider impact whilst providing jobs for local people. The Low Carbon Prize is open to all sorts of ideas to reduce carbon emissions and exactly what is needed to identify tomorrows entrepreneurs and business leaders. Apply at http://bit.ly/17OW9a1 by 17 May.

Head of school, Anthony Guo, and pro vice-chancellor, Helen Bartlett cut the cake at the ELPs opening ceremony as participants and their mentors look on

Sabic signs MIT research deal

SAUDI ARABIAN chemicals giant Sabic and chemical engineers at the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have agreed to collaborate on a novel feedstocks research programme. The deal will see researchers from both partners work together to develop processes that use unconventional feedstocks and new materials. This agreement marks a starting point for collaboration between Sabic and MIT, says Ernesto Occhiello, Sabic executive vice president of technology and innovation. Sabic will be able to tap into MITs multidisciplinary research capabilities to achieve research excellence. Along with focussing on the important areas of developing unconventional feedstock and innovative new material solutions, Sabic will also focus on innovating in multiple parts of the energy equation, Occhiello explains. The Saudi company says that its research relationship with MIT is just one of many that Sabic has already established around the world, with other partners at the UKs Cambridge University, the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China and Germanys Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

may 2013

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PROCESS NEWS

Solar bolt-on cuts gas use by 20%

Reflected heat converts natural gas to energy-richer syngas
A NEW system that adds concentrated solar power to existing gas-fired power plants promises to cut natural gas use by 20% while still generating the same amount of electricity. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National laboratory (PNNL) in the US have developed a system that uses solar heat to convert natural gas into syngas a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide that produces more energy when its combusted. The system uses a mirrored parabolic dish to direct sunlight onto a device measuring around 1 m long and 50 cm wide, containing a chemical reactor and several heat exchangers (pictured). The concentrated sunlight heats up the natural gas flowing through the reactors channels, which contain a catalyst to convert it into syngas, while the heat exchangers recycle heat left over from the reaction. Tests on an earlier prototype of the device showed that more than 60% of the solar energy that hit the systems mirrored dish was converted into chemical energy contained in the syngas.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Hydrogen fuel goes fossil free

Enzyme cocktail opens up new feed of super abundant plant sugars
BIOENGINEERS at Virginia Tech in the US say they have developed an efficient method to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant material amove that offers to free its production from fossil fuels and hints at a future in which cars could be powered by agricultural waste. The cocktail of enzymes created by the team works under mild reaction conditions at 50C and normal atmospheric pressure to liberate high-purity hydrogen from xylose a sugar that makes up as much as 30% of plant cell walls. The enzymes are taken from microorganisms that thrive at extreme temperatures, and produce three times as much hydrogen than other natural or engineered microorganisms, the team claims. While hydrogen has been touted as a sustainable fuel for the future, at present it is produced in a less-than-green fashion by steam-reforming natural gas expending energy to convert a fossil fuel into a different source of fuel. But now Percival Zhang and his team of bioengineers say they can clean up hydrogen production using sugar, water and low-grade heat. The energy stored in xylose is used to split water molecules, yielding hydrogen that can be used directly in proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. The result is a net energy gain, the team says the hydrogen generated carries more energy than is stored in xylose or the

Researchers say that the devices could be installed alongside existing natural gas power plants to create what they are calling hybrid solar-gas plants. They are now working to develop cheaper manufacturing techniques for the system in a bid to drive the cost of electricity production to no more than US$0.06/kWh by 2020, which they believe will make the system competitive with conventional gas-powered plants. Our system will enable power plants to use less natural gas to produce the same amount of electricity they already make, says PNNL engineer Bob Wegeng, who is leading the project. At the same time, the system lowers a power plants greenhouse gas emissions at a cost thats competitive with traditional fossil fuel power. Meanwhile, the team says the system overcomes a key problem with existing solar setups in which plants cease operating when cloudy or at night. With PNNLs system, the gas plant would simply bypass the solar unit and burn natural gas directly.

Microbe converts atmospheric CO2 into industrial chemical

RESEARCHERS in the US have engineered a primitive microorganism to convert inorganic CO2 and hydrogen into a key industrial precursor chemical. Bacteria have previously been engineered to produce useful fuels and chemicals such as succinic acid from sugars but these are sourced from biomass. The advantage of the new approach is that the engineered archeon, Pyrococcus furiosus, can take in CO2 and H2 directly from its surroundings and react them at low temperatures to form 3-hydroxypropionic acid, which is used to make a range of chemicals including acrylates and polymers. What this discovery means is that we can remove plants as the middleman, says University of Georgia biotechnology professor Michael Adams. We can take carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals without having to go through the inefficient process of growing plants and extracting sugars from biomass. The team (from the universities of Georgia and North Carolina State) now intends to scale up the technique.

PNNLs gas reactor system, installed on a mirrored parabolic dish

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CAREERS PROCESS NEWS tce

Waste heat improves CCS efficiency

Modification in amine regeneration points to cut in parasitic power loss
SO-CALLED waste heat from power stations could be used to remove CO2 from amines and regenerate them, rather than using steam which could otherwise be used to drive turbines, according to new research from Rice University,US. Amine solutions are used to capture CO2 from flue gas in a similar technique used to remove CO2 from natural gas as it comes out of the ground. There is an important difference however, as it comes out of the ground at high pressure while flue gas does not which, according to chemical and biomolecular engineering professor George Hirasaki, means that the process needs further engineering for use in power plants. Simulating the process to investigate modifications, the team found that some of the waste steam which is at too low a pressure to drive turbines could be used in the reboiler which adds heat to the base of the amine regeneration column, replacing high pressure steam from the main system. This use of high-pressure steam to regenerate amines can use up to 35% of the electricity output of the power station. Hirasaki and his team estimate that using waste heat instead could reduce this so-called parasitic power loss by 10%. The team also found that it may be possible to better tailor the amine solutions, as different solutions work optimally at different conditions. Higher pressures for example, favour the use of diethanolamine (DEA) and diglycolamine (DGA) over monoethanolamine (MEA). The team says more research is needed. Theres a great deal of optimisation that needs to take place, says researcher Sumedh Warudkar. The question is, what is the optimal amine formula and the optimal reactor design and pressure for removing CO2 with low-value steam? There isnt one correct answer. For example, we have developed a process in which the gas absorption and solvent heating occurs in a single vessel instead of two separate ones, as is currently practised. We think combining the processes might bring us some savings. The team also plans to test novel CCS materials and look for ways to further reduce parasitic power loss. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2013.01.049 and DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2013.01.050
www.tcetoday.com 19

polyphosphate that is added to the cocktail mix. The development will no doubt pique the interest of car manufacturers who are developing vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells, and the governments that have helped to fund their research. If Zhangs development were to solve the problem of sustainability of supply, there are still a number of key engineering challenges to overcome before hydrogen could begin to replace petrol as a transportation fuel. Engineers are trying to find better ways of storing

hydrogen that would avoid installing heavy in-car systems to cool the gas to a liquid, or high-pressure systems that risk rupturing and exploding in a collision. Another key barrier is the development and installation of infrastructure to distribute hydrogen to fuel stations. Away from transportation, the new process could offer a greener supply route for industry where hydrogen is also used to manufacture ammonia for fertilisers. Angewandte Chemie DOI:10.1002/anie.201300766

Tasty twist on an old recipe as carbon capture plant looks to store emissions in baking soda
SKYONIC, a US-based process technology developer, is set to build a commercial carbon capture project in the US that will turn emissions from a cement plant into baking soda. Backed financially by BP, ConocoPhillips and the US Department of Energy, a Skyonic spokesperson tells tce that the company is soon to announce the specific construction date for a facility that will capture carbon from Capitol Aggregates cement plant in San Antonio, Texas. Skyonic says its carbon capture technology dubbed SkyMine will selectively remove carbon dioxide, acid gases, and heavy metals emitted from the cement plants flue gas streams and recycle it into hydrochloric acid and sodium bicarbonate also known as baking soda. Initially, this will be sold to animal feed producers, company CEO Joe Jones told Bloomberg. The production of solid, value-added chemicals from CCS offers an interesting alternative to the mainstream efforts of storing CO2 underground. The application of Skyonics technology would help to allay fears that these buried emissions will escape into the environment and offers a capture technology suitable for industry based in regions that lack suitable geology to store emissions, or where the construction of accompanying pipelines and injection technology would be more expensive. Skyonic expects that when the new facility is operational in 2014, it will capture 83,000 t/y of carbon at a substantially lower cost than competitive technologies. It adds that the process could be retrofitted to existing industrial and power plants and can be configured to remove between 1099% of emissions. While the detailed process of capture and conversion remains under wraps, Skyonic told tce that it includes low-energy dewatering and electrochemical production steps.

may 2013

tce

INNOVATIONS

Pharma technique boosts algae oil output

High-throughput method achieves dramatic increase in yield
BORROWING techniques used in the pharmaceutical industry, chemists have indentified chemicals that can boost the oiloutput of algae by as much as 85%. Microalgae are strong contenders for improving the environmental credentials of biofuels, which when produced from the likes of maize and soy are criticised for taking up precious agricultural land and diverting food into fuel tanks. Meanwhile, photosynthetic microalgae can be grown in saltwater ponds, capturing carbon dioxide and converting it into oils and lipids. A key challenge for researchers working in this area is to improve the low oil yields that are hampering the commercialisation of algal biofuels. Arriving at the University of California Davis, US with a background in pharmaceutical chemistry, research leader Annaliese Franz hit upon the idea of applying high-throughput techniques used to speed up the screening of new drugs to instead improve the departments search for compounds that could boost oil yields from algae. The idea, Franz says, is to look for small molecules that can affect a metabolic pathway in a cell. By setting up large numbers of cell cultures and measuring a simple readout in each, its possible to screen for large numbers of different compounds in a short time and home in on the most promising. The basic concept comes from the pharmaceutical industry, and its been used for human cells, plants, yeast, but not so far for algae, she adds. The research team screened 83 compounds for their effects on growth and oil production in four strains of algae. They identified several that could boost oil production by up to 85%, without decreasing growth. The promising compounds include common antioxidants such as epigallocatechin gallate, found in green tea. Franz and her team calculate that some of the chemicals they analysed would be cost-effective when scaled up to a 50,000 l pond. Once the oils have been extracted from the algae to make biofuels, the remaining mass canbe processed for use as animal feed. Chemical Biology DOI: 10.1021/ cb300573r

The pipe that pumps itself

THE days of the humble pump could be numbered now that US scientists have developed a new material with an adaptable surface that could be coated onto pipes to control the flow of liquids through a process plant. The material, developed by Harvard University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering can be tuned to be more or less slippery and transparent simply by stretching it. At rest, it is extremely smooth allowing droplets of oil, water, or other liquids to flow freely across its surface. But when deformed, it becomes rougher, and can stop the flow of liquids completely. The surface is also
n Target liquid

Packaging picks a food fight

FOOD packaging is being invited to take up arms in the fight against food-borne illness, thanks to a new coating that selectively kills deadly bacteria. Chemical engineers and material scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US created the coating by attaching cell-splitting enzymes to food-safe silica nanoparticles. The team reports that its new coating kills high concentrations of Listeria food-borne bacteria estimated to kill 500 people each year in the US. The coating works within minutes and does so without harming other species. The coating can also be applied to starch nanoparticles commonly used in food packaging. The team says that the technique offers an alternative to using antibiotics or chemical decontamination in food supply systems. In this study, we have identified a new strategy for selectively killing specific types of bacteria, says Ravi Kane, Rensselaer professor of chemical and biological engineering. Stable enzyme-based coatings or sprays could be used in food supply infrastructure from picking equipment to packaging to preparation to kill Listeria before anyone has a chance to get sick from it. The team reports that by using tailored lytic enzymes, which break down cells, surfaces could be engineered to target other lethal bacteria such as those that cause anthrax. Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/ srep01584
Listeria bacteria is estimated to kill 500 people each year in the US

more opaque in its rough state. The researchers speculate that the technology could be used as a coating to control the flow of liquid through pipelines and microfluidic systems or to make tent fabric that turns opaque to offer shade on a sunny day but more transparent and water-repellent when its dull and wet. The new material is a liquidinfused elastic porous surface, which is what allows for the fine control over so many adaptive responses, says research author Joanna Aizenberg, a professor of engineering at Harvard. Nature Materials DOI: 10.1038/ nmat3598
n Stretchable substrate

n Liquid repellant coating

Sliding Expansion
Slippery Non-slippery

Pinning

Expansion

When stretched, the material confers the ability to reversibly pin droplets of water stopping them in their tracks 20 www.tcetoday.com may 2013

CAREERS INTERVIEW tce

Outspoken on adding value

Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris tells Helen Tunnicliffe why the US needs to export goods, not gas

HE US has got a lot of shale gas, and many companies getting it out of the ground. The result is a huge glut. The average American is benefitting greatly from the drop in domestic gas prices, while company after company is commissioning new plants to turn the gas into useful feedstocks, or fuel, or plastics, and on and on downstream. While production is expanding, the use of gas the cleanest of fossil fuels is reducing the national carbon footprint. Emissions fell by 430m t from 20062011, the largest drop of any country surveyed by the International Energy Agency. Producers are keen to seek greater profits abroad by exporting this shale gas as LNG to energy-hungry economies. But they find themselves pitted against manufacturers and other energy consumers who are enjoying the rock-bottom gas prices. Exporting shale gas would inevitably raise their costs. One of the most vocal opponents of unchecked shale gas exports has been Andrew Liveris, IChemE Fellow and CEO of Dow Chemical, one of the worlds largest chemical companies. Liveris spoke to tce ahead of the Davis lecture in London where he spoke on the topic of advanced manufacturing after IChemE awarded him the George E Davis medal for his services to chemical engineering. Liveris influence in the manufacturing sector should not be underestimated. He has recently been appointed chair of the US Business Council, an advisory group made

up of Fortune 500 CEOs. He explains that the Council pulls together the business community, the government with US president Barack Obama involved and civil society, to create business policy statements and offer policy advice. Liveris an Australian says it is a huge honour, especially as he is the first foreigner elected to the position.

speaking out
Liveris says being outspoken comes with his nationality, and he is not afraid to use his position as a prominent businessman to speak candidly about important issues We have a very important podium at Dow. We are the US largest energy consumer as a single entity, something like US$2025bn worth, so you might imagine that my company and I have a view on the cost of those inputs, says Liveris. He points out that US manufacturing has seen a resurgence in recent years (tce spoke to Liveris in depth about manufacturing in November 2011), and not exporting the shale gas could help to fuel this resurgence further. Instead of converting it into a liquid and shipping it to nations around the world, and then letting them make the goods and shipping them back to America, should we not look at value-add inside the US economy? Liveris asks.

Instead of converting shale gas into a liquid and shipping it to nations around the world, and then letting them make the goods and shipping them back to America, should we not look at value-add inside the US economy?
it out of the country could be seen as adding value compared to domestic sales, but it doesnt create many jobs. Joblessness, Liveris says, is becoming an epidemic in modern society. As manufacturing becomes more efficient, fewer people are needed, so there are fewer jobs. Politicians should be thinking about what sectors of their economy can create the necessary jobs and economic growth. I would tell you that value-add, technologyrich, intellectual property-thick industries offer great jobs. The chemical industry is one of the highest-paid in the US, he says. One step of value-add is hardly enough jobs. Lets go all the way to making cosmetics, to ceiling tiles, to floor coverings, to automotive parts, to aerospace parts, to water filtration, to medical devices. All of that by closing the value chain between raw material and finishedgoods.

jobs, jobs, jobs

Cooling shale gas into LNG and shipping

its all about balance

Critics of Liveris stance on shale gas have accused him of being against free trade, saying that he favours protectionism which he vehemently denies. At the last count, there was US$96bn of investment on the books for the US in valueadd industries creating 5m new jobs. Im not against free trade, Im actually for free trade, Im as capitalist as any CEO would be, but for a national policy, lets look at balance. How much should stay domestic, how much should be allowed to be exported? Liveris asks. Lets crawl, walk, run through that conversation rather than rush through the first financial door that offers us a quick fix. Thats a balanced view, thats not an extreme view. tce

Andrew Liveris (right) receiving the George E Davis medal from IChemE president Russell Scott

To watch the full interview, visit www.tcetoday.com/videos htunnicliffe@icheme.org

may 2013 www.tcetoday.com 21

tce

HUMAN FACTORS

The safety of cultures

Just say no. Or perhaps you cant. Nick Hallale looks at the inherent dangers of cross-cultural communication

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CAREERS HUMAN FACTORS

tce

grew up in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, and although many historic things happened during that era, one small occurrence also stands out for me. One of my teachers had worked at a school for Zulu children, and he told an interesting story about how the pupils would all refuse to stand up for him when he entered the room. Now, at my own school, refusing to stand for a teacher was seriously disrespectful, and was typically rewarded with a caning. However, none of the Zulu children were punished. Why? The reason is that in Zulu culture, it is considered rude to stand higher than someone older than you. At their schools, you show respect by sitting down in the presence of a teacher, and so those children were doing exactly the right thing. I have always liked this story it illustrates two themes important to this article. Firstly, it shows how we all see things through the filters of our own societies. Secondly, it demonstrates how people from different cultures can have totally different ways of interacting with people they perceive as senior. As we will discuss, this is a hugely important phenomenon which can have disastrous consequences if not recognised.

Of course, reaching this level of ability is very difficult, and so I would like to discuss some tools that can help.

tools for understanding different cultures

In the late 1960s, Geert Hofstede1, a Dutch mechanical engineer who later switched to psychology, carried out a research project for IBM into cross-cultural behaviour and collaboration. His pioneering work showed that different societies could be given numerical scores to represent various aspects of behaviour. Currently, his methodology comprises six cultural dimensions: power distance index (PDI); individualism versus collectivism (IDV); masculinity versus femininity (MAS); uncertainty avoidance (UAI); long-term orientation (LTO); and indulgence versus restraint (IVR).

We all see things through the filters of our own societies...(and) people from different cultures can have totally different ways of interacting with people they perceive as senior.

pdi:

DISTANCE

POWER

INDEX

Power distance index (PDI) is the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. Societies with a high PDI tend to be very hierarchical, with very clear divisions between juniors and seniors. On the other hand, low-PDI societies are flatter and more egalitarian.

how culturally aware are you really?

I like to break cultural awareness into three levels of achievement. Many engineers especially those working in large multinational companies have probably been exposed to initiatives about diversity and inclusion, with the goal of teaching respect and tolerance for people regardless of their race, gender, religion and so on. Of course, this is all very commendable, but only just scratches the surface, and is merely level 1. Level 2 is when you start to learn about the specific customs and etiquette of a particular culture. This is very valuable for keeping relations smooth, and avoiding giving offence or making a faux pas. Many of these pointers are not intuitive, but you can learn them pretty easily from books, websites or training courses. Although a significant improvement over level 1, there is still more. Level 3 is something different, and is when you are able to get inside the head of someone else, truly understand their thought processes, and extract the real intent behind what they are saying. You also need to be able to convey your own intent without miscommunication. (A perfect example of someone at level 3 would be Neil Armstrongs interpreter, as discussed in the box on page 26.)

104

Hofstedes power distance index: the darker the colour, the higher the PDI (grey = no data available). Note that the UK, Australia and New Zealand all share a similar, low PDI. On the other hand, Chinas is much higher, while Malaysia has one of the highest in the world.
60 65 67 68 70 75

104

54

57

77

HIERACHICAL

93

94

95 90

80

80

81

may 2013 www.tcetoday.com

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Data from http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html

Austria 11 Israel 13 New Zealand 22 Ireland 28 UK 35 Switzerland 34 Germany 35 Australia 36 Netherlands 38 Canada 39 US 40 South Africa Italy Japan Czech Republic South Korea Belgium Colombia France Egypt Lebanon India Nigeria China Venezuela Russia Philippines Saudi Arabia Arab Emirates Slovakia Malaysia

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EGALITARIAN

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HUMAN FACTORS
This article will only discuss PDI (see box). The other dimensions are still highly interesting and can be found on Hofstedes website, http://geert-hofstede.com/ dimensions.html. Hofstede defines PDI as the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. Societies with a high PDI tend to be very hierarchical, with very clear divisions between juniors and seniors. On the other hand, low-PDI societies are flatter and more egalitarian. Now, obviously, no attempt to quantify human nature could ever be perfect, but Hofstedes dimensions are still very valuable, as long as we remember to treat them like any other engineering rule of thumb.

When addressing a superior, a person from a high-PDI society would tend to soften or mitigate their speech, often hinting about a concern, rather than stating it directly. Provided that the listener is attuned to the subtleties of the culture, the message still gets across.

the art of refusing without refusing

In many societies often also those with high PDIs people have a strong aversion to saying the word no . Asian countries like Japan are probably the most famous for this, but it occurs elsewhere too. In those societies, having to say no is seen as a loss of face, particularly when saying it to a superior. Conversely, it is considered boorish to put someone in a position where they have to say no. As a result, these cultures have developed elegant ways of communication that avoid the situation completely. Requests can be made obliquely, and refused subtly, without anyone being put in an awkward situation, while to an outside observer, it would just appear to be two people talking. To make it even more confusing, some of the responses that really mean no can sound like a yes to an outsider. Again, provided that both parties understand the nuances, this works. However, when somebody from a different culture enters the picture, it becomes far less reliable. Although dealing specifically with Japan, some interesting insights can be found in this online article: http://www.kuis.ac.jp/ icci/publications/kiyo/pdfs/14/14_06.pdf

recognising different forms of speech

In societies with a low PDI, managers are often seen as first among equals , and communication tends to flow easily in both directions. However, in those with a high PDI, this is certainly not always the case. Juniors tend not to disagree with, or criticise, their seniors, and may even use a different form of grammar, depending upon their relative positions. In addition, when addressing a superior, a person from a high-PDI society would tend to soften or mitigate their speech, often hinting about a concern, rather than stating it directly. Provided that the listener is attuned to the subtleties of the culture, the message still gets across. However, it is very dangerous to assume that a non-native will have that level of sensitivity.

so what does this have to do with process safety?

The connection comes via an engineering topic known as human factors, which analyses the way people interact with complex systems. Gladwell2 does a fascinating job of correlating cross-cultural factors to several high-profile aviation disasters. Although a different industry to our own, the lessons are still valuable, and I highly recommend his book. It does not take much of a stretch to see how similar scenarios could play out in the manufacturing industry. In the popular bowtie model for analysing process safety (see Figure 2), human beings are often considered to be a barrier against a hazardous situation developing or escalating. However, this line of defence is not infallible, and is more likely to fail when it relies on more than one person, and where cultural differences lead to miscommunications during safety-critical moments. For example, imagine that an operator in a control room receives an alarm that gas has

Maybe

NO
Leave it with me

Ill see what I can do That could be possible

Ill try

In many societies often also those with high PDIs people have a strong aversion to saying the word no and tend to use other words to express a refusal. Just because something sounds like a yes, dont assume that this is really the case. 24 www.tcetoday.com may 2013

CAREERS HUMAN FACTORS

Figure 2: The popular bowtie model for process safety relies on operators as barriers
Hazard

tce

Threat 1

Consequence 1

Threat 2 Barrier control

Top event
Barrier recovery measure

Consequence 2

If a company knows that significant interaction with another culture is looming, it would be wise to let people on both sides know what to expect from their future colleagues.

Threat 3

Consequence 3

Escalation factor

Barrier (Escalation factor control)

Barrier (Escalation factor control)

Escalation factor

HSE critical activities engineering maintenance operations

been detected in an LPG storage compound. He radios the outside operator and tells him to shut an isolation valve immediately to stop the leak. The outside operator sees that the LPG leak is too big and that he simply cannot approach the valve safely. Hopefully he would radio back and explain that this is impossible and an alternative should be found. But imagine if he came from a culture where he was not happy saying no directly, especially to a senior. He might tone down his response by saying something like Its a big leak, but Ill see what I can do. In his mind, he has refused, but the inside operator, depending on his background, could easily take this as a yes . Both would assume that the other person was dealing with the crisis and that no further action was required on their part. All it needs is for the continued leak to find an ignition source, and this

fictional scenario could end very badly. Another example: a junior operator is working with one more experienced to drain water from a gasoline tank. Imagine that the older operator deviates from the written procedure and wedges the springloaded draining valve open with a piece of wood, rather than holding it open manually. You would hope that the second operator would intervene and insist that the proper procedure be followed. But if the junior originated from a high-PDI society, would they really feel able to challenge their superior? Possibly not. They might try hinting at their concern, saying something like Thats an interesting way of doing it! , but this could have little meaning unless the senior came from a similar culture. Even worse, the junior may believe that they are mistaken because of their own inferior

status, and put the incident out of mind. If the older operator remembers to remove the wedge, things would probably proceed without incident. But if forgotten about, leaving the tank to drain until the next shift, the company could end up with a bund full of gasoline, and potentially another Buncefield on its hands.

what can we do?

The above examples should certainly make our industry question the strength of our human barriers, but fortunately this does not mean they are necessarily invalid. It just means that they may need some bolstering in todays world. Gladwell described how one Korean airline addressed its poor safety record by changing the cockpit culture. Regardless of the culture outside work, the company retrained staff to lower the PDI in the workplace, empowering junior crewmembers to act assertively on their safety concerns. On the topic of training, a little bit of awareness building can go a long way. If a company knows that significant interaction with another culture is looming for

Senior High PDI

Senior Low PDI

Senior High PDI

Senior Low PDI

Junior person may struggle to communicate upwards assertively. Conversely, senior person may not understand full implications of what is being said

Senior person communicates downwards directly

Junior person communicates upwards deferentially, but senior person is still receptive to what is being said

Senior person communicates downwards directly

Junior person communicates upwards directly

Senior person communicates downwards directly

Junior person communicates upwards directly

Senior person communicates downwards directly.

Junior High PDI

Junior Low PDI

Junior Low PDI

Junior High PDI

Figure 3a: All other things being equal, when both individuals have the same societal PDI, the risk of miscommunication is reduced.

Figure 3b: Mismatched PDIs can introduce risks of miscommunication when the high-PDI individual is junior to the low-PDI individual may 2013 www.tcetoday.com 25

tce

HUMAN FACTORS
instance, a Chinese company acquiring a plant in the UK it would be wise to let people on both sides know what to expect from their future colleagues. Finally, the engineer in me likes the idea of using PDIs to flag up potential miscommunication risks between specific combinations of team-members (see Figure 3). All other things being equal, you would be less concerned about two operators from the same culture working together as senior and junior. A high-PDI operator in a senior role to a low-PDI operator could also probably work well, since neither would feel culturally inhibited from speaking frankly to the other. On the other hand, the combination of a high-PDI operator in a junior position to a low-PDI one might potentially have some challenges. With a bit of knowledge, though, these could be overcome easily.

raising capabilities
This article is not about right or wrong approaches. Please do not come away thinking that somebody from one culture is inherently more or less safe than somebody from another. That would be an incorrect conclusion, and is most emphatically not the message here. Rather, the message is this: Every society has evolved certain behaviours, styles and conventions that work for it, within its own particular environment. As long as everyone follows them, they continue to work as designed. But, like computer software, blindly transplanting these systems into a completely different environment is simply looking for trouble. Since the globalisation of the manufacturing industries is not going to go away, the only real option now is to raise our own personal capabilities. tce Nick Hallale (hallalen@gmail.com) works in industry most recently at a major European refiner with responsibilities for process safety and project development

Whats it like up there?

In 1972, still at the height of his fame after the successful moon landing, Neil Armstrong was on a world tour, and one of his speaking engagements was at a school in Japan for very young children. One of them asked him, via an interpreter, Mr Armstrong, what was it like on the moon? Armstrong replied jokingly, Well, I didnt see any green cheese, thats for sure! The interpreter turned to the child and said, in Japanese, Well, I didnt see any rabbits, thats for sure! Huh? What kind of incompetent interpreter was this? Mistranslating green cheese as rabbits! He should have been fired, right? Actually, no. In fact, this interpreter did an outstanding job, and demonstrated the highest level of cultural awareness. You see, in Japan, children are not brought up with the story that the moon is made of green cheese. Thats a Western idea. In Japan, children learn a fairytale about a rabbit who lives on the moon making rice cakes. That interpreter knew that if he just relayed Armstrongs words, the answer would have been meaningless. Instead, he deciphered the intent behind the words and then seamlessly repackaged it in a form that the Japanese child would understand. The end result was perfect. Granted, this is a somewhat childish story, but it brilliantly illustrates the principle that taking someones words at face value, without properly appreciating the intent behind them, can be misleading, even dangerous.

further reading
1. Hofstede, G, Cultures Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, SAGE Publications, 2001 2. Gladwell, M, Outliers: The Story of Success, Little, Brown and Company, 2008

Every society has evolved certain behaviours, styles and conventions that work for it, within its own particular environment...blindly transplanting these systems into a completely different environment is simply looking for trouble.
26 www.tcetoday.com may 2013

acknowledgements
Thanks to Thokozani Majozi of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, for sharing his insights into Zulu culture; and to Dominic Foo of Nottingham University for some valuable Chinese and Malaysian perspectives.

tce

HUMAN FACTORS

To err is human
Addressing the management of human factors is vital for high-hazard industries, says Jo Sharp

VERYBODY makes mistakes, regardless of how well trained or motivated they are. However, the effects these mistakes can have in the process industries can be severe. Consider for a moment that Texas City, Buncefield and Piper Alpha were all initiated by human error. In fact, accident analysis shows that human failure plays a part in almost all incidents and near misses. The effective management of human factors is essential in helping to prevent such incidents and the huge physical, financial and reputational damage that they can cause. But its not just solely about prevention there are inherent gains too. Successful human factors management will help operators achieve high productivity and quality while maintaining elevated standards of process safety.

David Herd, operations manager

As an operations manager, my historical involvement with safety issues tended to be after the event: incident investigations and preventing recurrence. GSK had a living safety behaviours standard which set expectations on how we could all improve safety, but in the daily whirlwind it was easy to lose sight of how important it was, and to focus on short-term production issues. Then a couple of years ago, I was appointed as living safety leader for the site and undertook the human factors course to help me fully understand why the standard wasnt embedded in what we do every day. Once you apply the learning, you start to look at things very differently. Instead of focussing on who and on what, you look at why. Its very unusual for people in a highly-regulated industry to break the rules intentionally, so why do incidents happen when we have such detailed procedures? When you find that many procedures are open to interpretation, are not written by those who carry it out, or you have a plant setup that makes it impossible to follow, then alarm bells ring. When you find that minor issues go unreported for fear of blame or because they stay unresolved for months, then its no longer a surprise when bigger incidents happen. And when supervisors and managers are so busy in meetings that they never visit the shop floor, is it any surprise when priorities are sometimes misaligned? At GSK Irvine, we created a consistency of consequences process, so that anyone involved in any safety incident knows there is a transparent and consistent process which will decide if any consequences are appropriate. This, combined with a major focus on closure of minor safety concerns, has seen reporting of minor issues rise by over 250% in the last year. Managers now attend daily meetings in the workplace with frontline operations staff. Supervisors have scripted auditing of key operational tasks built into their day. Standard operating procedures are now updated by those who will ultimately carry out the job. And all significant incident Once you apply the learning, investigations include human you start to look at things factors analysis so that we really understand the why. very differently. Instead of We have reduced injuries and focussing on who and on reduced spills while increasing what, you look at why. output.

understanding behaviours
The factors in so-called human factors can refer to environmental, organisational and job factors, and human and individual charateristics which influence behaviour at work. In turn, they can affect health and safety, efficiency and productivity. As we are all aware, each of us has a wide range of abilities and limitations. A human factors or systems approach focuses on how to make the best use of these capabilities by designing workplaces, jobs, procedures and equipment which are fit for people. Ergonomics/human factors has always been central to accident prevention in the process industries; however, the availability of tailored courses specific to the needs of high hazard industries has been scarce and many of the safety and operational professionals charged with managing human factors have no formal qualifications or training in the behavioural sciences. To address this gap, IChemE and the Keil Centre run a one-year professional development programme (accredited by the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors). The course content is delivered in a series of intensive modules dealing with the key human factors issues in major hazard sites, put forward by Britains Health and Safety Executive, and also examines process safety, culture and leadership in detail. Here we catch up with two past delegates to see how their learning from the course has been applied to their organisations. tce
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CAREERS HUMAN FACTORS

Dirk Roosendans, head of department, technological risks
Total Refining & Chemicals consists of about 230 industrial sites in the business of refining, and manufacturing petrochemicals and chemicals. Safety management systems have been installed in most major sites since the 1990s. Despite continuous and ongoing improvement in the areas of technical design and management systems, accidents continued to occur and we observed a levelling off of safety performance indicators such as lost time incident rates (LTIR) and total recordable incidence rate (TRIR). In 2006, we took the first step of trying to improve safety performance by addressing behavioural aspects. Surveys were organised to measure and better understand the existing safety culture in some refineries and petrochemical facilities. The survey results indicated that efforts were necessary to improve the leadership of managers and to stimulate the participation of employees in formalised and non-formalised safety initiatives. These conclusions were explained and discussed with the site personnel and with corporate management. While everybody agreed on the validity of the analysis, there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty on how to convert the theoretical principles into a pragmatic approach in the field. Based on these results, some sites developed initiatives such as critical task analysis. At corporate level, a safety culture improvement plan was drafted. However, many of the initiatives were focussed on strengthening existing safety management systems rather than addressing individual and collective behaviours.

tce

In 2008, some of our employees subscribed to IChemEs Human Factors in Health and Safety course. The practical information retrieved from the course content allowed them to cross the barriers to convert theoretical concepts and principles into pragmatic tools. By the end of 2010, the safety culture development strategy was redesigned, this time armed with the practical tools and insights obtained during the modified IChemE/Keil Centre training course. A Total Refining & Chemicals version of an HSE behaviour standard was developed and used in a variety of applications such as performance recognition, incident analysis and individual yearly performance review. In the last five years, some of the pitfalls that we experienced while developing strategies to improve safety culture include: developing new systems and practices to promote safety culture rather than optimising existing ones; not allocating sufficient resources (time, competent people) for the development of an improved safety culture; not selecting the right people to lead implementation; expecting immediate results (first results may only appear after years of relentless efforts); forgetting to continue the development and optimisation of technical designs and effective organisation; waiting for others to take the first step to change behaviour (managers get the behaviour they deserve from their people); and copying practices from other sites without considering the success rate of these practices in their own organisation.

er

no

Human Factors in Health and Safety

A professional development programme for the process industries
Australian programme:
Module 2 Human Reliability and Failure: 2930 May 2013, Perth, WA Module 3 Organisational Issues: 45 September 2013, Perth, WA Module 4 Human Factors and Design: 56 February 2014, Perth, WA

Re

gi

st

Accredited by IEHF

European programme:
Module 4 Human Factors and Design: 2223 May 2013, Edinburgh, UK Module 1 An Introduction to Human Factors: 1617 October 2013, Edinburgh, UK
0764_13

In partnership with

Module 2 Human Reliability and Failure: 56 February 2014, Edinburgh, UK For more information and to register visit: www.icheme.org/humanfactors or email: courses@icheme.org
ADVANCING CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WORLDWIDE

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TWO

Its big. Capital B-I-G, BIG.

The top five facts everyone should know about oil exploration
Ryan Carlyle makes the case for oil
ONE

Oil is important. Shockingly, sometimes horrifically important.

THE world economy has been developing with oil as its lifeblood for over a hundred years. Oil is directly responsible for about 2.5% of world GDP1, but accounts for one third of humanitys primary energy supply (>5 TW out of 15 TW). Its over half if you include natural gas (see Figure 1). Oil/gas powers 100% of all transportation, within a few significant figures of rounding error. Transportation, in turn, directly accounted for one sixth of world GDP in 19972 and is heavily involved in every other type of economic activity. Except for a minuscule number of electric-powered vehicles, you cant move anything anywhere faster than ~25 mph without oil. You cant operate a modern military, and you cant run a modern economy. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that modern civilisation would collapse in a matter of months if oil stopped flowing. Oil is about as important to the developed world as agriculture. Its truly a condition for the continued existence of most of humanity today.
20 Oil Coal Gas Hydro Nuclear Other renewable
Calculated from data published in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2012

Energy 1,000 TW/d

15

10

0 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Figure 1: World energy consumption by source

The worlds oil and gas transport infrastructure is a globe-spanning spiderweb of pipelines and shipping routes. The natural gas distribution pipelines in the US alone could stretch from Earth to the Moon 78 times3. There are millions upon millions of miles of pipe on the planet to distribute crude oil, refined products, and natural gas (mostly gas). Consider this: if your home has natural gas heat, it is connected via a continuous network of pipes to tens of thousands of wells drilled into subterranean rock strata that were laid down tens of millions of years ago. Thats pretty cool, really. Your house is directly connected to the Pliocene era by the worlds oil and gas infrastructure. About 40% of all seaborne cargo is oil4, and there is literally more seaborne cargo at any given time (by weight) than there are fish in the sea5. Oil is in transit for a much shorter amount of time than the lifespan of most fish, so the total amount of oil that moves via water each year is much, much higher than the total amount of fish biomass. Think about what that means for a minute: the ocean isnt full of fish, its full of oil cargoes. Unfortunately, that scale makes it nextto-impossible to technologically disrupt the oil industry. This is going to make some people mad, but its reality. Not only is oil and gas critical now, but there are no viable replacements in our lifetime. People who think renewables can replace oil with a few decades of Manhattan Project-style effort are simply ignorant of how big oil really is. Even if we assume the energy-storage problem is solved soon, there is no reason whatsoever to think any feasible amount of renewables growth can displace fossil fuels in a couple of generations. Wind and solar are growing exponentially, yes, but from such a small base that it doesnt even make a dent the use of renewables as a percentage of total world energy consumption only increased by 0.07% from 1973 to 20096. Let me break down some numbers. World oil production was 82m bbl/d in 20107. At roughly 6 GJ/bbl, thats about 5.7 TW of power production.

Oil accounts for ONE THIRD of humanitys primary energy supply

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You have no idea how BIG oil is.

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THREE

World wind power production in 2010 was 0.3 PWh8. Averaged over a year, thats about 34 GW. So world energy production from oil alone is two orders of magnitude higher than wind power, and three orders of magnitude higher than solar power. Let me pick on solar power a little, because its downright embarrassing to compare the two.

Oil is wealth. Not just wealth for producers, but wealth for everyone who uses it.

If solar power generation doubled every decade for 100 years, it would still be pretty far behind oil today.
If solar power generation doubled every decade for 100 years, it would still be pretty far behind oil today. These numbers get significantly worse if you add in natural gas and coal. And much worse still if you allow for expected demand growth. Sorry guys, but regular old exponential growth isnt even enough. To match oil, youll need half a century or more of clear energy superiority. That means cleaner and cheaper and more concentrated for storage. Nothing fits the bill yet. To replace oil, youll need a century to allow the entire economy to retool and realign around the new technology.

The historical use of cheaper, more-concentrated, and cleaner energy sources seems to be one of the most direct causes of economic growth. Even more importantly, it causes vast improvement in the human condition. Simply put, better sources of energy increase productivity and produce fewer negative externalities. This effect is huge. Cheap, abundant energy lifts nations out of poverty. China understands this. Failure to secure energy supplies dooms nations to collapse. The Mayans found this out too late. Energy efficiency is powerful and highly desirable, but it cant compete with increasing the primary energy supply. Most of the time, increased energy efficiency actually results in increased energy consumption, because of cheaper costs (per unit output) and faster economic growth. This is called Jevons Paradox. Highly-developed nations can use advanced technology to increase quality of life while using less energy, but lessdeveloped nations can not. Getting to developed-nation status required a lot of highquality energy. And oil is indeed high-quality energy. Its liquid, which makes it easily moved and stored. Its stable, and it releases a huge amount of energy. Its also much, much cleaner than coal. If it werent for CO2 emissions, oil and gas would be a nearly-perfect energy source. Figures 2 and 3 show what their growth has done to the worlds wealth. Those two charts dont match by accident. Every transition to a cleaner, cheaper, more-concentrated energy source causes dramatic improvements in real global wealth (and quality of life). Electrification caused most of the growth from 19001950. Oil enabled the post-war boom from 19501970, and natural gas strongly contributed to the growth from 19701995. The growth since 2000 has, unfortunately, been largely been due to increased coal consumption in Asia. The digital revolution and Great Recession have played a large part in global wealth trends, but mostly in the parts of the world that were already wealthy by global standards. Okay, so maybe you dont care about GDP, and want to know about quality of life. Energy is fundamentally required for a high quality of life, as measured by the UNs Human Development Index. There is a range of energy consumption that depends on climate and population density, but broadly speaking, high-consumption countries have the highest quality of life. Sure, the biggest energy-consuming nations could reduce per capita consumption a lot, and still have high quality of life the US could learn a lot from Denmark. And current trends show they are steadily moving in that direction energy consumption per capita and per dollar of GDP is steadily dropping in the developed world. Thats a good thing. But the energy required to lift 3bn people out of poverty is far, far more than the potential energy savings from eliminating energy waste in the developed world. Im not talking about stretch-SUVs and 60 TVs, Im talking about refrigeration for vaccines, irrigation for agriculture, and fuel for school buses. The planet cannot support 7bn people at a low-energy agrarian level of existence we have long since passed the point where we can revert back to a low-tech, low-energy form of civilisation without billions of people dying of starvation. It is truly a moral imperative to allow the worlds poor to enjoy the basic fruits of development. That will require an enormous amount of new energy production capacity. Thankfully, the world mostly needs electricity, which is much easier to expand than oil. But we need a lot of oil too. Oil is energy, and energy iswealth.
World GDP Real GDP per capita, US$
http://bit.ly/eESavE

World energy consumption

6

n Nuclear n Hydro-electric n Natural gas n Oil n Coal n Biofuels

8,000

Gail Tverberg www.ourfiniteworld.com

GJ per capita per year

5 4 3 2 1 0
1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980

6,000

4,000

2,000

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

2000

2000

Figures 2 and 3: World per capita energy and real GDP

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the rig floor estate agent

You are safer statistically on

The oil industry is a really SAFE place to work

Despite the Hollywood stereotypes, oil rigs are actually quite safe. drill site, but theyre exceptionally well-managed. Working on an oil rig used to be pretty dangerous lots of older guys in my office are missing parts of their fingers. But the industry has made huge strides in safety improvements over the past few decades by increasing automation, providing comprehensive safety training, and changing the work culture. Its a different world now. Accident rates have dropped steadily since the 1990s, to the point the oil industry is now safer than many regular occupations. The OSHA statistics prove it. To really put safety in perspective, the average 2.1 total recorded injury rate (TRIR) for rig operations is lower than [OSHAs] 3.3 TRIR for real estate. You are safer statistically on the rig floor than driving around with a real estate agent.9 Land rigs have about the same injury rate as a regular construction job, and offshore rigs have a lower injury rate than being a teacher. In Figure 4, the oil industry is rolled up into mining. Jobs that are actually dangerous include truck-driving, logging, fishing, and nursing. Ill happily deal with swinging cranes, high-pressure chemicals, toxic oil fumes, and offshore helicopter flights but you couldnt pay me enough to be a nurse. They have it rough.
http://www.bls.gov/iif

FOUR Dont get me wrong, there are lots of extremely hazardous activities at a

than driving around with a real

Agriculture, forestry etc 5.2 Transporting & warehousing 4.8 Healthcare/social assistance 4.7 Arts, entertainment, recreation 4.3 Manufacturing 3.9 Construction 3.8 Retail trade 3.8 Accommodation/food services 3.7 Utilities 3.1 Wholesale trade 3.1 Real estate, rental/leasing 2.9 Admin and waste services 2.6 Other services (except public admin) 2.5 Mining (includes oil industry) 2.2 Educational services 2.0 Information 1.5 Management of companies/enterprises 1.3 Professional & technical services 1.0 Finance & insurance 0.7 6.0 4.0 2.0 0

45.6 185.0 592.6 51.7 455.6 184.7 413.2 269.2 17.2 166.7 47.6 116.1 71.4 16.6 35.8 35.7 22.9 66.4 37.0 225 450 675

Incidence rate (per 100 full-time workers)

Number of cases (in thousands)

Figure 4: Incidence rates and numbers of non-fatal occupational injuries by private industry sector, 2011

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Figure 5: Recent profit margins at Exxon, Apple, Microsoft

40% 30% 20% 10) 0% -10%

www.wolframalpha.com

2009 Exxon Mobil (from Jun 2008 to Dec 2012) Apple

2010 Microsoft

2011

2012

Oil companies dont really make that much money

Contrary to popular belief, the oil majors ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Total, ConocoPhillips, and Shell dont actually make all that much money (see Figure 5). Yes, its a lot in absolute terms because the companies are so large, but the profit margins are pretty sad in a good year. Bad years (like most of the 1990s) cause crippling contractions and mass layoffs. In fact, oil companies underperformed the S&P500 throughout the 1990s. Go ahead, accuse me of cherrypicking data. You have a point, but the same can be said about the recent high profits that everyone complains about. Yes, profits have beaten the S&P500 lately, because oil prices are very high right now. Guess what? Exploration and development costs are rising faster than the price of oil. Net revenue per barrel at the majors (not profit, just revenue) is only running at about US$20/bbl even though oil has gone up from ~US$40/bbl to ~US$100/bbl. What happens when Chinas big recession hits, and oil demand drops significantly? The price will plummet by 23 times, just like it did at the start of the Great Recession. This is an incredibly capital-intensive industry, in which large projects take longer to execute than the length of the business cycle. Thats fundamentally difficult to manage. Oil is a widely-traded, high-competitive commodity market. That means basic economics causes profits margins to go as low as they can without companies exiting the industry. In this case, 810% profit margin is the minimum risk premium you can offer a company to convince it to continue doing business in: a market where your product is almost completely interchangeable with the next guys product; a cyclic industry that sees 45x swings in the price of finished goods, with steadily-rising input costs; a business where each US$100m exploration well has a 5090% chance of being a failure; a business where a bad mistake means US$40bn in fines and damages; a market dominated by government-run companies which are held to lower environmental and legal standards; countries with a history of illegally nationalising oil infrastructure; a fairly hostile regulatory environment; and a fairly hostile PR environment. Frankly, its a miracle anyone wants to be in this business at all. I truly think the major oil companies are underpaid. The riskadjusted returns are awful compared to most sectors. The only way oil companies survive this kind of business environment is by consolidating, so that the risks are spread out over a wider base. Thats why oil companies are some of the largest publicly-traded

FIVE

companies in the world because they have to be huge to survive. So where does all the oil money actually go? To national oil companies mostly OPEC. They have control of all the cheap oil thats easy to get out of the ground, so they have a combination of high net revenue per barrel and some semblance of cartel pricing power. Dont make the mistake of thinking the majors and the nationals are in the same league: Saudi Aramco is estimated to be worth about four times as much as the top ten publicly-traded corporations put together, which includes ExxonMobil, PetroChina, Shell, and Chevron. Oil is such a behemoth of an industry that the big players dwarf the worlds largest corporations. Theres lots to know about the oil industry people spend their entire careers learning small slices of it but if more people understood the facts listed here, we would have much more productive public discourse about the worlds energy systems. Ryan Carlyle (ryan.d.carlyle@gmail.com) is a subsea well intervention engineer and an avid follower of global energy systems. This article was first published on Quora at www.quora.com/ oil-exploration/what-are-the-top-five-facts-everyone-shouldknow-about-oil-exploration

further reading
1. Institute for Energy Research, bit.ly/cwADek 2. NSSSGA, bit.ly/H4KFUO 3. Pipelines 101, bit.ly/128b5Tb 4. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, bit.ly/128b6GR 5. University of British Columbia, UN Conference on Trade and Development, What If?, bit.ly/137uij6 6. Centre for the Study of the Built Environment, The Rising Renewables (CSBE), bit.ly/YXGL7e 7. Zacks Research, bit.ly/m0bgew 8. Scientific American, bit.ly/YsoJwM 9. Oil & Gas Journal, bit.ly/128b6GT

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The shale revolution

Richard Jansen looks at how shale gas is changing the world

UST ten years ago, the International Energy Agency predicted a gloomy future for the North American gas industry. In its annual World Energy Outlook report, it claimed that the region was set to experience a marked shift in its sources of gas supply as the reserves upon which [it] currently depends are rapidly depleted. The organisation did note that new sources were expected to help replace these dwindling reserves, but assured readers that they are not expected to be sufficient to

Figure 1: US gas production by source

35 30 Gas production (trillion ft3) 25 20 15 10 5 0 1990

meet rising demand and imports will grow in importance over the coming decades. It was wrong. Rather than declining, the gas industry has seen a boom of stratospheric proportions. The sheer volume of supply has seen prices drop to a level comparable to those in the mid-80s despite a much higher rate of consumption. In turn, the US has suddenly found itself once more the darling of the chemicals industry, which has rushed to invest billions of dollars in plants specially crafted to take advantage of bargainbasement feedstock. In the IEAs latest edition of the World Energy Outlook, it made a confident new prediction. Far from becoming increasingly reliant on imports, it estimated that the US will overtake Russia as the worlds biggest gas producer by 2015, and two years later take away Saudi Arabias crown of biggest oil producer too. Sometime around 2030, it claims, North America will become a net exporter of energy for the first time in decades. And most of this though admittedly not all is down to a resource that was barely considered viable ten years ago: shale gas.

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015 Year

2020

2025

2030

2035

2040

over 20 years in the making

Looking at the figures, its easy to see why the potential impact of shale gas went unnoticed for so very long. Despite first being produced in the early 1800s, its found trapped within huge formations of shale rock. As with most

n Shale gas

n Tight gas

n Alaska

n Associated with oil n Non-associated onshore

n Coalbed methane

n Non-associated offshore

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other unconventional hydrocarbons, such as oil sands and coal-bed methane, it is hard to extract through traditional drilling and production methods. Even so, the two technologies key to unlocking the gas from its network of underground pores and cracks horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) were developed in the 1930s and 40s respectively, and the US has been producing shale gas from the Appalachian and Illinois basins for well over a century. According to figures produced by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), however, at the turn of the millennium the country was producing only 320bn ft3/y from shale barely 1.7% of its overall output. The latest figures show that this has now jumped by a factor of around 25 to around 8tn ft3/y (see Figure 1). In the report The Shale Gas Revolution, analyst firm Chatham House wrote that: Although the ramping up of production is relatively recent only since 2006 have the numbers begun to be significant the shale gas revolution was over 20 years in the making. Over that period, three separate factors came together to make shale gas production economically viable. Firstly, diminishing reserves and global instability have all helped to drive up natural gas prices, as has increasing demand from both developed countries like the US and growing economies such as China and India. Over the same period, massive advances were made in both horizontal drilling and fracking. Much of this work was funded by the US government, which began pouring huge amounts of R&D money into shale in the early 1980s, in a bid to head off declining reserves. The results of this work, and the processes involved, were then freely disseminated to operating companies working across the country.

Figure 2: Cost of oil and gas to industrial users

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 Oil 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Cost (US$/boe)

Gas

Year

drilled in the USA

The impact of this influx of cheap gas has been vast, and not just on the suddenly booming energy industry. As wellhead prices those charged by producers without taking into account distribution costs plummeted, so too did those paid by industrial users (see Figure 2). With crude oil hovering around the US$100/bbl mark, US natural gas suddenly became an incredibly attractive feedstock for the chemicals industry. Chemicals behemoth Dow, for example, isin the process of investing billions of dollars to completely reshape its US operations around natural gas, which it says is creating a manufacturing renaissance in the country.

Speaking early last year, Dow CEO (and IChemE Honorary Fellow) Andrew Liveris claimed that: For the first time in over a decade, US natural gas prices are affordable and relatively stable, attracting new industry investments and growth and putting us on the threshold of an American manufacturing resurgence. The outlook for advantaged US natural gas was a significant factor in Dows decision to invest US$4bn to grow our overall ethylene and propylene production capabilities in the US Gulf Coast region, added Jim Fitterling, Dow executive vice president. Dozens of other companies have also been quick to take advantage of the boom. In early February, Canadian methanol producer Methanex announced an ambitious plan to disassemble an idled plant in Chile where it has been suffering severe gas shortages for some time load it onto a barge and rebuild it in the city of Geismar, Louisiana, some 7,000 km away. The company estimates that the process will cost around US$550m, but still expects it to turn a profit thanks to a decade-long supply agreement with shale producer Chesapeake Energy. Methanex even says that it may well repeat the effort with another of its other Chilean plants in the next few months.

more than gas

The explosion of the shale industry has also unlocked huge amounts of liquids, especially as plummeting gas prices forced companies to look for more lucrative streams of income. Over the past few years a slow decline in production has reversed itself, and in October of last year the country produced more than 200m bbl in a month for the first time since January 1998. North

Three separate factors came together to make shale gas production economically viable. Firstly, diminishing reserves and global instability have all helped to drive up natural gas prices, as has increasing demand from both developed countries like the US and growing economies such as China and India. Over the same period, massive advances were made in both horizontal drilling andfracking.
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Dakota, home to the liquid-rich Bakken Shale has seen production increase almost ten-fold over the past decade (see Figure 3), becoming the second biggest oil-producing state after Texas the heartlands of the US chemicals industry. In early April, workers in the state broke ground on the first refinery to be built in the US since the mid-70s a 20,000 bbl/d diesel plant specially built around crude produced in the nearby Bakken. Its only set to cost some US$300m and is relatively tiny when compared to the multi-billion dollar mega-projects underway in the Middle East and East Asia, but is nevertheless a sign of confidence that shale will continue to provide cheap feedstock for many years to come. Two further small refinery projects, run by the MHA Nation of Native American tribes and Dakota Oil Processing, are also up for consideration at the moment. The boom hasnt just been felt in industry either. Its slowly been making itself felt in politics too, especially as global instability makes energy independence increasingly attractive not to mention popular with voters. As well as this, the creation of hundreds of profitable businesses has helped the US weather the global economic downturn, and politicians have been keen to play up the energy industrys role in job creation. We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years, claimed US president Barack Obama during his 2012 State of the Union address. And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. We are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.

environment
Though the rise of the US shale industry has been meteoric, it has not been without its own considerable political controversies, almost all of which centre around the fracking process. A single fracking operation involves some 200 tanker-loads of water being mixed with sand and lubricating chemicals and pumped into rock formations at pressures high enough to split the shale apart. This has attracted the ire of environmentalists for several reasons, not least of which is the sheer amount of water it uses. The water used on each would easily fill an Olympic-sized swimming-pool, or supply an average family in the developed world for ten years. Over the past decade or so, more than 200,000 wells have been fracked in the US alone. And because this water will contain dissolved chemicals and other contaminants it requires significant treatment before being disposed of or reused and is often stored in pits above ground for some time or simply re-injected underground a process that has been linked to minor earthquakes. Even the chemicals themselves have been a source of controversy. Thanks to a loophole in the US Clean Water Act, operating companies have not been legally obliged to disclose the make-up of these so-called fracturing fluids as they count as proprietary information. This has led to a torrent of complaints from environmental groups arguing that the public has a right to know what is being pumped underground. Some fear that these chemicals, as well as the gas and liquids trapped in the shale, may contaminate the water table near wells a claim that came to prominence in the 2010 documentary Gasland, which appeared to show methanelaced tapwater being set alight. Industry has dismissed these allegations, however, asserting that the shale plays and water table are usually separated by several thousand feet of impermeable rock. After several studies by regulators in the US and abroad, the general consensus on fracking appears to be that in theory it is safe, provided it is well-regulated and carried out with due care. In a report commissioned by the UK government which put a year-long moratorium on fracking in 2011 after the process was linked to several small earthquakes the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) claimed that more likely causes of possible environmental contamination include faulty wells, and leaks and spills associated with surface operations. Neither cause is unique to shale gas, the groups added.

After several studies by regulators in the US and abroad, the general consensus on fracking appears to be that in theory it is safe, provided it is well-regulated and carried out with due care.

Figure 3: North Dakota liquids production

25,000 Liquids production (thousand barrels)

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

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World shale production
North America
While the US looks set to stay at the heart of the global shale industry for the foreseeable future, both Mexico and Canada are also thought to hold considerable shale reserves. However, public opposition over environmental risks could pose a threat to the industrys continued growth.

Europe
Shale gas faces an uncertain future in Europe, where environmental concerns over fracking have led to temporary or outright bans in several countries, including France and the Netherlands. It had met with strong support from Poland, but the countrys ambitions took a blow when ExxonMobil scrapped its development efforts after disappointing results from test wells.

Asia
According to EIA figures, China could hold as much as 1,275tn ft3 of technically recoverable shale gas around one-anda-half times as much as the US and has set out plans aiming to produce ~1tn ft3/y within the coming decades. Russia is also thought to have considerable reserves of shale oil and gas in Western Siberia, and has signed several partnerships with western energy majors in a bid to take advantage of their technical experience.

South America
Argentina is thought to hold the worlds third-biggest reserves of technicallyrecoverable shale gas ~774tn ft3 according to the EIA. The recentlynationalised YPF says that exploiting the unconventional resource is one of its biggest priorities, and has signed deals with Chevron, Bridas and Dow to help develop the Vaca Muerta play.

Africa
South Africas Karoo basin is thought to hold a huge amount of shale gas, and three international energy companies have bought exploration rights in the region, including Shell. The use of fracking remains controversial, however, with a moratorium on the process only being lifted last September, and some have raised fears that the regions geology may make production technically difficult.

Australasia
Australia is one of the worlds biggest exporters of LNG, and resource minister Martin Ferguson claims that shale gas deposits in Central Australia could potentially double its reserves. As well as gas, the country could also find itself rich in shale liquids, with Linc Energy claiming to have made a massive 3.5bn bbl find in the Arckaringa basin earlier this year. As with many other regions, however, doubts still linger over frackings environmental credentials though the process managed to escape a ban in New Zealand, which it may rely on to unlock its energy reserves.

bridging the gap

Though environmental concerns have seen shale stall across much of the world (see map) its hard to deny the impact it has had on the US, and harder still to imagine it going away any time soon. Though theres already been plenty of evidence that the IEAs predictions are far from set in stone, the lure of energy independence for North America looks to be far too tempting a possibility to ignore. Ultimately, the sheer success of shale gas may end up being one of its greatest downfalls. Governments around the world, including those in the US and UK, have portrayed natural gas as a bridging fuel smoothing out the transition from

emissions-heavy coal and oil to carbonfree renewables. In a report entitled The Future of Natural Gas, however, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) voiced fears that the boom of cheap, comparatively clean gas could chip away at enthusiasm (and funding) for the development of green technology, such as improved wind turbines or photovoltaic solar panels. As Henry Jacoby, co-author of the report, put it: People speak of gas as a bridge to the future, but there had better be something at the other end of the bridge.

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rjansen@icheme.org
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Jeff Harwell explains how research into new greener surfactants could help unlock huge volumes of stranded oil

Relax the tension

N
ON-petroleum engineers are often stunned to learn that as much as 80% of all the oil that has ever been discovered is still in the ground. As an example, in the US, Oklahoma was one of the early oil-producing states, where as much as 14bn bbl of oil has been produced yet of the estimated 82bn bbl originally in place, 68bn bbl remains. Production of oil from a reservoir occurs in three stages. Stage 1 is primary production, where the natural pressure in the reservoir causes the flow of fluid towards the production wells. This stage ends when the pressure of dissolved gases in the reservoir has been depleted. Stage 2 is secondary production; here, water is injected into the reservoir to push remaining oil to the production wells. This process is called water flooding. Water flooding becomes uneconomical after injected water reaches the production wells, and too little oil with too much water begins to be produced. At this point generally between 6090% of the original oil remains in place. Second, however, is that the physics of the multiphase system in the oil reservoir resist complete production of the oil even from the most permeable regions. There are three principal components in the oil reservoir: crude oil, brine, and rock. The interface between the immiscible oil and the brine is a region of high interfacial tension. This high oil/water interfacial tension causes the remaining oil to become trapped in the pores of the rock, just as water is trapped in the porous structure of a towel or a sponge. The force trapping the oil in the rock pores is called the capillary force, which is strongly dependent on the oil/water interfacial tension.

using surfactants
This is where the third stage of oil production enhanced recovery becomes an option. One choice is to inject chemicals such as surfactants (or surface active agents) which increase oil production because they adsorb between the oil and the water, lowering the interfacial tension and reducing the trapping force. A surfactant is a molecule that has both a water-soluble and an oil-soluble component, so that in its lowest free energy configuration it is partially in the water phase and partially in the oil phase. This adsorption of a surfactant at the oil/water interface lowers the oil/water interfacial tension, reduces the capillary force trapping the oil in the rock pores, and allows the oil to be mobilised to the production wells (see Figure 1). The use of surfactants to produce trapped

80%
of all the oil
that has ever been discovered is still

untapped oil
Why hasnt this huge volume of oil already been produced? There are two principal reasons. First, the rock formations where the oil is found are highly heterogeneous that is they have varied structure, containing both low-permeability regions and highpermeability regions. Once water flooding has produced the mobile oil from the high permeability regions, the oil in the lowpermeability regions is generally stranded.

in the ground
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CAREERS OIL & GAS tce

The challenge today is to develop surfactants that can tolerate the high salt concentrations in the brine found in most oil reservoirs, because we can no longer assume that fresh water will be available for mixing the surfactant.

Figure 1: Overcoming capillary and Jamin forces

Once the easy oil is freed, engineers turn to the tactic of water flooding to help free oil trapped within microscopic pores

Rock Oil

Water Residual oil drop

Surfactants are used to overcome the capillary forces and so-called Jamin effect that keeps the oil locked in place

P = (J1 - J2)
Rock 2 1 Water contact angle

oil was the focus of a major research effort from the late 1970s through the early 1980s. Important results of this work included both understanding that the interfacial tension forces could be minimised by formulating surfactant to produce a microemulsion of the oil and brine at reservoir conditions, as well as successful field-scale demonstrations of the technology. Research lagged, however, with the collapse of oil prices in the mid1980s. The dramatic increase in oil prices over the last few years has revived the interest in surfactant flooding, but with a dramatically different landscape. Among the new considerations are a growing concern for the wise use of water resources, better surfactant technology, and the divestment of old oil properties by the major oil producers. The oil in the old reservoirs is more valuable, but the smaller companies producing them have less capital and less access to technology.

dealing with salt

Our research at the University of Oklahoma is aiming to address this situation. The challenge today is to develop surfactants that can tolerate the high salt concentrations in the brine found in most oil reservoirs, because we can no longer assume that fresh water will be available for mixing the surfactant. The average reservoir brine contains 10% dissolved salts by weight. By comparison, sea water contains only 3% salts. Many reservoirs containing billions of barrels of oil have brines that are over 15 wt % salt. This is a great challenge because most commercial surfactants have been designed to work with potable water. We have learned, however that the low solubility of typical surfactants in highly saline brines can be overcome by using mixtures of surfactants that interact synergistically, and
may 2013 www.tcetoday.com 39

J2

Oil PW

PW

J1

Schematic of an oil globule trapped by capillary and Jamin forces

J1 and J2 are mean curvatures of pore while is the oil/water interfacial tension. The surfactant reduces , releasing the drop of oil, which is then pumped to thesurface.

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OIL & GAS

The process eliminates a significant environmental hazard ie the disposal of brines. When brine is not injected back into the reservoir from which it was produced, it cannot be disposed of by discharging it into rivers or streams because the dissolved solids will contaminate the waterway. They cannot be disposed of in brine pits either, as used to be done, because if the pits leak they can contaminate the groundwater used in water wells. The most common way of disposing of oil field brine is in salt water deep injection wells. These wells inject the brine into rock formations thousands of feet below the depth of fresh water aquifers, but there is always the possibility of accidental spillage of the brine, or the leakage of the brine from the well casing into the aquifers penetrated by the salt water injection well. The process also largely eliminates the need for competing with other demands for potable water, and dramatically reduces the cost of producing the trapped oil. Using reservoir brine instead of fresh water eliminates the need for transporting fresh water to the site and eliminates the need for a water treatment facility to remove microbes and suspended solids from the fresh water. This can reduce the cost of a project by 10% or more, depending upon the cost of providing the fresh water. This issue has been largely overcome now by the new surfactants and surfactant formulation techniques that have been developed, since they remain active in the brines.

Figure 2: Researchers have tailored the component groups of surfactants to create a suite of molecules that work together to produce low interfacial tension

Alcohol
O

PO
O O S O

Sulphate
_

O M

Branched hydrophobe with 8 to 18+ carbons

n n = 420

Reducing the amount of surfactant required, by reducing the amount of surfactant adsorbed, will be an important development leading to the widespread adoption of surfactant flooding for environmentally friendly oil production from ageing reservoirs.
40 www.tcetoday.com may 2013

by making new types of surfactants called extended surfactants, that incorporate short polymer chains to prevent their precipitation. For example, we have had great success with the SASOL line of Alfoterra anionic surfactants. These are monoalkyl branched propoxy/ethoxy sulphates. The alkyl chain provides most of the oil solubility of the molecule. Branching inhibits precipitation and liquid crystal formation in the heavy brine. The propoxy chain increases oil solubility without increasing sensitivity to precipitation. The sulphate group provides most of the water solubility, but this may be augmented by a polyethylene oxide chain so that the surfactant has the right balance of solubility in the oil and the brine so that it concentrates at the interface. Figure 2 shows a single surfactant molecule, but we typically use a mixture of 24 different surfactants that interact synergistically to produce the low interfacial tension. It is now possible to formulate surfactant systems that will mobilise oil even from reservoirs containing brines that are 25% salts by weight. Systems like this have been successfully demonstrated in the field over the last 24 months our research group at the University of Oklahoma has completed two successful single well tests of the technology over the last two years, in partnership with MidCon Energy of Tulsa, an oil company that specialises in water flooding technology. The University and MidCon have recently created a new company, Chemical Flooding Technologies, to commercialise the joint research. There are several key elements to the commercialisation of this technology in an environmentally friendly way. The most important is to be able to re-use the brines that are produced from the reservoirs, with minimum water treatment. The produced brine is extracted (which happens when oil is produced during a water flood), has surfactant added to it, and is then reinjected into the reservoir. Surfactant flooding requires more water than hydraulic fracturing. A single project requires millions of barrels of water, but by using the brine in the reservoir instead of fresh water, each project could save millions of barrels of water.

the challenge
Other challenges still exist. These are primarily economic in nature. In particular, the amount of surfactants required must be reduced to a level where there is a good return on investment for a surfactant flooding project. Because of the volatility of oil prices, investments in surfactant floods are risky if the upfront capital investment is too high. Today we know how to produce low interfacial tensions at low surfactant concentrations, but too much surfactant can be lost because of adsorption of the surfactant on the rock surfaces. Reducing the amount of surfactant required, by reducing the amount of surfactant adsorbed, will be an important development leading to the widespread adoption of surfactant flooding for environmentally-friendly oil production from ageing reservoirs. tce

Jeff Harwell (jharwell@ou.edu) is the Conoco/DuPont professor of chemical, biological and materials engineering at the University of Oklahoma, US

JOGMEC

tce

OIL & GAS

Flaring on a Japanese deepwater drilling rig in the Pacific Ocean signals the first offshore production of gas from frozen subsea deposits

Frozen assets
Natural gas hydrates show huge promise as a brand new source of untapped energy says Mahdi Kapateh

up of hydrocarbons trapped in cages of ice exist at the bottoms of oceans and in deep permafrost layers onshore. This makes their exploitation inherently costly and uneconomical today. However, given the current rate of research and development (most notably focussed around Japan, Canada, and Alaska), many scientists believe gas hydrates will satisfy much of the worlds growing appetite for energy. This will lead to a restructure of global geopolitics, as many countries with limited access to fossil fuels suddenly gain their own abundant reserves of gas (see Figure 1).

why natural gas hydrates?

Conveniently-exploitable reserves of fossil fuels are dwindling fast, pushing energy companies to search more extreme environments for oil and gas. Clathrates of gas hydrates are found in deepsea and permafrost regions, and form when guest molecules (or formers) such as methane and water molecules are aligned to stabilise at temperatures around 300K and pressures exceeding 6 bar. The guest molecule is trapped in a water cage and is stabilised by Van der Waals forces. The trapped hydrocarbons repulsive properties determine the type of cage formed (see Figure 2). The volume of gas stored is, on average, equivalent to that of highly-compressed gas at 00C and 180 bar. Despite having a lower energy density than LNG, it is sufficiently high to make gas transportation in hydrates an economically-viable possibility.

APAN played host to an exciting and potentially world-changing engineering experiment in March that saw it successfully extract natural gas from frozen subsea deposits. Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) estimates that the Nankai trough alone, where the tests are being conducted, contains 1.1tn m3 of natural gas equivalent to 11 years of LNG imports for the resource-poor nation. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The US Department of Energys Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimates that global reserves of so-called gas hydrates could meet current energy demands for more than 3,000 years. Most of the worlds gas hydrates made

the search for viability

Arctic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean Pacific Ocean Indian Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Figure 1: Known and inferred natural gas hydrate deposits in permafrost (blue diamonds) and offshore (red dots) adapted from the US Geological Survey

While we do not have an economically-viable method for hydrate extraction yet, numerous have been examined. Most of these involve the dissociation of gas hydrates by: increasing the temperature of gas hydrate reservoirs above their hydrate stability zone using hot water or steam injection; decreasing the reservoir pressure below the hydrate stability zone; or injecting alcohol-based inhibitors such as methanol, ethanol and glycols. Thermal stimulation is a simple and viable option, however, it is prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, pumping thousands of litres of inhibitors will cause severe environmental issues and will be expensive. Many scientists conclude that the most economicallyviable option will be the depressurisation of reservoirs as was carried out during the recent Japanese breakthrough.

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green energy from fossil fuels
But the promise of gas hydrates does not end with them simply being combusted. Projects are also under way to use the ice cages to lock up industrial emissions by replacing the methane (CH4) with CO2. There are thought to be two main mechanisms of CO2 sequestration in hydrates. In the first method the injected CO2 dissociates CH4 molecules and then the hydrate reforms. The second method is known as direct molecular exchange and is very similar to the first, with the key difference that hydrate integrity remains intact during the exchange. However, the latter method is restricted to releasing CH4 from only the largest cages. Between February and April last year, ConocoPhilips and JOGMEC used CO2 sequestration to produce CH4 from the Ignik Sikumi gas hydrate field. The project achieved constant gas flowback during the six-week period and was considered highly successful though the exact mechanism of sequestration remains unknown.
Water molecule cage
2 512 62 6 Structure I

Methane, ethane, carbon dioxide...

16 5
12

8 512 64

Propane, iso-butane, natural gas...

Structure II

Gas molecule (eg methane)

43 56 63

2 512 68

Methane + neohexane, methane + cycloheptane...

Structure H

landslides and subsequent release of even more methane to the atmosphere. Technological measures will need to be improved if the commercial development of gas hydrates is to have a safer future.

Figure 2: The three most common forms of hydrate cages. Note: 512 68 is a water cage comprising of 12 pentagonal and eight hexagonal faces

a bright future
Peering even further into the future, there are research and commercial institutions around the world investigating other exciting applications for gas hydrates, including the removal and separation of CO2 from flue gases using hydrate formation, and research at UK university Heriot Watts Centre for Gas Hydrate Research has shown they can be used in heat pump systems to provide low-cost refrigeration technology while producing highly pure water. A number of companies have moved to develop specialised transportation ships where hydrates are produced on board, transported in near adiabatic vessels and regasified when the ship reaches port. This would provide access to huge volumes of conventional gas reserves that are either too far from existing pipelines or too small to justify an LNG production plant. It is estimated that transportation in a hydrate state could reduce the overall cost by over 25%. None of the safety issues associated with gas hydrate exploitation and use appear insurmountable. Its an exciting time for engineers working in this field, as we stand on the cusp of promising developments for global energy supply. tce Mahdi Kapateh (mahdi.kapateh@pet. hw.ac.uk) is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Gas Hydrate Research at Heriot Watt University Acknowledgements: Jinhai Yang, Antonin Chapoy and Bahman Tohidi

extreme problems
Of course, energy companies dont get it all their own way, with the extreme conditions needed to form gas hydrates presenting a number of safety and production issues. For hydrates to form, water and former molecules must be present in a very narrow temperature and pressure range. In the offshore environment, this leads to the natural formation of hydrates in seismic faultlines but also in conventional oil and gas production pipelines where they form a solid blockage. Hydrates can completely or partially block a pipeline, resulting in up to several months production downtime, as well as giving rise to a number of extremely serious safety issues. To minimise hydrate formation in their infrastructure, oil companies inject alcoholbased inhibitors as well as kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHIs) at the wellhead. Hydrate blockages may dissociate by disruption of the hydrate equilibrium, either through natural means or by locally heating the plug using blowtorches. When plugs dissociate, they first detach from the pipe walls, thus any pressure gradient causes the plug to be shot through the pipeline like a torpedo at speeds of up to 300 km/h. The effects can be disastrous destroying infrastruture and killing workers. In deepsea floors where gas hydrates are present, pumping hot oil through the drill pipes may lead to a temperature rise in the sediments liberating large quantities of methane, leading to gas blowouts, loss of support for pipelines as well as underwater

Our conveniently-exploitable reserves are dwindling fast. This fact has placed greater demand on exploitation of new reserves in extreme conditions such as deep seas and permafrost regions.
may 2013 www.tcetoday.com 43

CAREERS SENSORS & INSTRUMENTATION

tce

Making smart use of the noise

Your plants are far smarter than you think. Neil Hankey explains why

OU might be surprised to learn that the average smart device installed in your plant has hundreds of configurable parameters and is capable of looking far beyond its own self-diagnosis. Todays smart devices have established a firm foothold and dominate the market. In fact, it is more or less impossible to buy a non-smart instrument that doesnt have the ability to communicate through a digital protocol such as HART, Profibus, Modbus or Foundation Fieldbus. Despite these capabilities, the likes of HART which was established by the HART Communication Foundation 20 years ago is chiefly used as a configuration protocol by commissioning and maintenance engineers for range setting and zero checking on pressure transmitters These devices are now capable of using advanced statistical techniques to diagnose issues that may affect their connection to the process and even the efficacy of the process itself but unfortunately they have been largely overlooked by plant operators and their use is still, in my experience, depressingly low. For those willing to make full use of the possibilities, there are big opportunities

to be had, capable of saving operators considerable time and money. At Yokogawa, for example weve seen that its possible for smart transmitters to use the inherent noise in most industrial processes to diagnose a variety of potential issues even to predict a possible plant outage (see Figure 1).

putting process noise to work

There are no industrial processes that exist without noise or fluctuations generated by pumps, compressors and other ancillary equipment. Its quite normal to see a mechanical pressure gauge needle vibrating away on a process line. This in many ways can be used to indicate the positive health of a normal working process. Instrumentation is designed to dampen these process fluctuations to create a stable value that can be used to control the process. After all, no one wants to control their operations based upon an unstable measurement. However, the fluctuations are still present and this inherent nuisance process noise can be used to determine the health of the process. The basic strategy is simple: a clean systems noise profile is determined and used

615 610 605 Pressure mm/WG 600 595 590 585 580 575 570
18/1/2013 20:05 19/1/2013 23:!0 19/1/2013 02:15 19/1/2013 05:20 19/1/2013 08:25 19/1/2013 11.30 19/1/2013 14:35 19/1/2013 17:40 19/1/2013 20:45 20/1/2013 23:50 20/1/2013 02:55 20/1/2013 06:00 20/1/2013 09:05 20/1/2013 12:10 20/1/2013 15:15 20/1/2013 18:20 21/1/2013 21:25 21/1/2013 00:30 21/1/2013 03:35 21/1/2013 05:40 21/1/2013 09:45 21/1/2013 12:50 21/1/2013 15:55 21/1/2013 19:00 22/1/2013 22:05 22/1/2013 01:10 22/1/2013 04:15 22/1/2013 07:20 22/1/2013 10:25 22/1/2013 13:30 22/1/2013 16:35 22/1/2013 19:40 23/1/2013 22:45 23/1/2013 01:50 23/1/2013 04:55 23/1/2013 06:00 23/1/2013 11:05 23/1/2013 1410 23/1/2013 17:15 23/1/2013 20:20

We live in a world where the processing power of smart devices has increased exponentially. They can now apply statistical techniques to predict their own failure or the failure of a process within a reasonable uncertainty.

Time

Figure 1: Noise profile with two clear blockages.The steep drops in the blue line representing differential pressure occur as blockages form in the process system. The fluctuation or noise in the measurement of differential pressure represented by the red line becomes less pronounced as the blockage approaches. We can now monitor for this specific change in pattern, allowing us to identify and prevent the blockage before it occursagain.

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tce

SENSORS & INSTRUMENTATION

as a statistical baseline from which any future deterioration can be measured. Then the rate of change of the noise profile enables the setting of a threshold inside the transmitter or asset management system to predict when maintenance will be required to prevent the loss of the measurement completely. This statistical noise profiling has been used successfully in pneumercator applications which measure purge level and density to ensure their integrity and correct operation. Using the noise profile, generated by the dip tubes within the vessel, we are able to detect both leaks and blockages in the system. Tests have further shown that the system is even sensitive enough to detect the performance of the stirrer in the vessel from the disturbance on the surface of the liquid within. The noise is produced by the bubbles breaking off the tip of the dip tubes. Typical flow rate for these applications is 18 l/h which, in our experience, results in a fluctuation level of around 2.3 x10-9, which is very small indeed. However, these levels of fluctuation are still detectable in vessels 3540 m away from the flow controller and transmitter which is mounted in a safe, convenient, accessible location. While these types of advanced diagnostics are able to raise an alarm directly, in most cases doing so is undesirable. Alarm management ie the filtering of critical alarms is of paramount importance to operators. Yet operations is where we meet the most resistance to advanced diagnostics so adding extra nuisance alarms will not help increase its application. So where should these new alarms go? Well perhaps the mistake is to call them alarms in the first place. They are more correctly warnings rather than alarms . These new maintenance warnings need to be

supported by an asset management solution that enables detailed examination of the additional diagnostic data. This allows you to conveniently separate your alarms and warnings, and direct them tothe responsible sections. For me, the process alarms would be directed through the DCS to operations, while advanced diagnostic process warnings would go through an asset management system to the maintenance team.

benefits of asset management

The benefits of implementing an asset management system are far greater than simply providing convenient segregation of your alarm and warnings. Your asset manager will implement automatic device patrols, tailored in accordance with their specific needs. For example, low-priority devices can be scanned every 24 hours while higher-priority devices can be scanned every few minutes for their latest status. All of this information should be conveniently displayed using customisable screens or process dashboards which mimic the plant hierarchy. Configuration management and parameter control are yet another important function of asset management. A pressure transmitter can have more than 150 parameters, while a valve positioner may have over 400. Scale this for 1001,000 connected smart devices and you can see why you might want to install asset management systems. These help to manage all of your devices along with their parameters and additionally provide an audit trail telling you who changed what, when and why. Should a mistake be made, it becomes a simple matter to restore the original configuration from the asset manager without having to revisit the device. Depending upon who you speak to, the main goal of any asset management system should be to eliminate unnecessary maintenance activities. An often-cited example of this is unproductive, exploratory trips to the field to investigate possible failures and process upsets. The first action for maintenance staff should be to interrogate the device from the comfort of the asset management system where they can gain a greater insight into any potential

Maximising the use of this additional data made available through advanced diagnostic and asset management systems will enable you to move from a reactive, firefighting maintenance regime to a more proactive strategy where your plants safety and availability are more assured.
problems before they step foot outside.

get smarter
Maximising the use of this additional data made available through advanced diagnostic and asset management systems will enable you to move from a reactive, fire-fighting maintenance regime to a more proactive strategy where your plants safety and availability are more assured. This also improves the management of risk associated with the maintenance of these dangerous, often aggressive, applications by minimising the exposure of your maintenance teams. Today we live in a world where the processing power of smart devices has increased exponentially. They can now apply statistical techniques to predict their own failure or the failure of a process within a reasonable uncertainty. As I write this article, there are several standardisation bodies surveying the use of smart devices in industry. They are looking to create new workflows, procedures and templates that will enforce best-in-class practices, maximising the use of this valuable process information. Most of these efforts are centred on the asset management system, since this is such an essential piece of the total solution. The key issue for standards like ISA108 is how and where we can utilise this new source of information. So ask yourself, how will you use this new source of valuable information in your daily activities? tce

The first action for maintenance staff should be to interrogate the device from the comfort of the asset management system where they can gain a greater insight into any potential problems before they step foot outside.
46 www.tcetoday.com may 2013

Neil Hankey (neil.hankey@nl.yokogawa. com) is global marketing manager for Yokogawa Electric Corp, Japan

tce

CAMPUS

Research returns
Richard Jansen reports back from a resurgent ChemEngDayUK

N A particularly cold spring morning in late March, more than 300 of the UKs finest chemical engineers braved the sub-zero gales to descend on central London for an event not seen in over a decade Chemical Engineering Day. More commonly known by the snappier title ChemEngDayUK, the meeting was the countrys first nation-wide chemical engineering research event in more than a decade. According to its hosts, Imperial College London and IChemE, the conference was designed to bring together leading researchers, engineers and scientists from around the UK to share their knowledge andideas. Over the space of two days, more than 30 invited speakers gave presentations on their research and plans for future innovations. As well as the academics, the event also saw a handful of lectures from the R&D divisions of industrial partners such as BP, GlaxoSmithKline and Proctor & Gamble. Meanwhile, well over 150 post-grads and PhD students lined the corridors and classrooms with poster presentations (as well as the occasional appeal for a job or research post) in between trips to the lecture theatre.

pretty healthy
Opening the event, IChemE CEO David Brown spoke of a fantastic turnout for what we hope will be an annual series of these events. I think that the amount of people we have here today reflects the pretty great health of chemical engineering as a subject in the UK, and indeed beyond, he added. Its a great time to be in the subject, and were really seeing a huge expansion in terms of its boundaries, the subject matter, and the areas of life on which chemical engineering is making a huge impact. If proof of Browns words was needed, you could just run an eye down the list of lectures, with topics ranging from reactor design to supply-chain optimisation, and from biofuel cells to paste extrusion. The keynote speech, delivered by the University of Chicagos Matthew Tirrell, covered molecular engineering, which he professed to be a new approach to engineering research and education. He spoke about Chicagos plans to build a new department able to translate molecular science into technology, creating systems from the molecular-level up.

pair of lectures aimed specifically at those looking to forge a life-long career in academia, featuring advice from the perspective of a head of department namely Imperials Andrew Livingstone and lecturer Pete DiMaggio. Over the space of two hours or so, the pair offered up a raft of information on life as an academic, first and foremost of which according to Livingstone is that its not going to be easy. If you want to work nine-to-five, he added, forget it. While Livingstone explained his own selection process, DiMaggio provided tips on interviewing for academic positions (make sure you know your fundamentals!) and setting out research plans for newly-graduated PhDs including an emphasis on making sure your work and position stands out from that of your old supervisor. Even if you believe you are doing something different from them, people will often assume you are equal in terms of your skillsets, he explained. If you train under a person and go out looking to solve the same problems as them, you may start competing for the same funding, and as their senior theyll naturally be much more likely to get that funding. With no funding, it gets pretty hard to do your job.

a terrific event
Despite being in its first year, the event was declared a great success, by IChemE director of policy Andrew Furlong, who added that Imperial College delivered a terrific event with a rich diversity of research on show. Much of the work had clear industrial application, he continued, and I was treated to some thought-provoking presentations addressing issues including measures to cut the energy penalty associated with carbon capture and storage, reducing nitrate pollution in groundwater, and improving efficiency in pharmaceutical production. Chemical engineering matters in the UK, and the ChemEngDayUK concept is an important element of our ambition to grow a confident and energetic research community. According to Furlong, plans are already afoot for next years ChemEngDayUK, which will be hosted by the University of Manchester and looks set to attract even more attention than the first. Centred around the theme of Building on the past, engineering the future the event is scheduled to be held on 78April2014. tce rjansen@icheme.org

its not going to be easy

Imperial Colleges chemical engineers operate their own CCS pilot plant 48

Alongside the technical presentations and posters, ChemEngDayUK also included a

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CAREERS POLICY tce

IMF calls for an end to crippling energy subsidies

State support holds back sustainable development and damages economies
subsidies. Most of the worlds energy subsidies are provided by developing countries, in particular those with substantial energy reserves of their own. Libya for example spends 16.6% of its annual budget supporting the sale of petroleum products. Lipton says that the share of the scarce government resources spent on subsidies remains a stumbling block to economic growth. Because of low prices, there is little investment in muchneeded infrastructure, he says. More is spent on subsidies than on public health and education, undermining the development of human capital. The IMFs call has been welcomed by IChemE policy director Andrew Furlong, who says that: Whilst fossil fuel use remains unavoidable in the short- to medium term it is clear that government subsidies are distorting the market and this can impede the uptake of clean energy technologies, including carbon capture and storage. The IMF is right to initiate a debate on this important political issue and IChemE welcomes any move to bring greater transparency and understanding to the complex matter of global energy subsidies.

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for governments to cut fossil fuel subsidies, which it claims amount to almost US$2tn/y. The group argues that this vast amount of money equivalent to 2.5% of global GDP could be better spent supporting research and development into energysaving and alternative energy technologies. It also claims that even though

subsidies are designed to protect consumers, they have a range of negative effects on economies. David Lipton, the IMFs first deputy managing director says: In recent years, we have been hearing about countries that are finding that the fiscal weight of energy subsidies is growing too large to bear. The IMF found that some 20 governments are spending more than 5% of their GDP on

UK thinktank slams national biofuels policy

THE UKs biofuels policy is unsustainable, expensive and can cause more damage to the climate than burning diesel, according to a report by thinktank Chatham House. Over the next year, biofuels will have to make up 5% of the transport fuel used in the UK if the country is to hit its EU-mandated renewables targets. According to Chatham House, however, current standards are too weak to ensure this is actually sustainable or affordable. It claims that the increased biofuels use will cost UK motorists some US$700m over the next 12 months. If it continues to rise in line with EU targets, it will be costing US$2bn/y by the end of the decade. The group claims that current standards drive the production of specially-grown crops for feedstock, and also waste products such as used cooking oil or tallow. The first can compete for land with food crops, driving up prices and lead to the felling of rainforest or peatland to make more space for more agriculture. This land use change may actually cause an increase in emissions that outweighs any savings the biofuels themselves are able to offer. As a result biodiesel from vegetable oils is found to be worse for the climate than fossil diesel, says Chatham House. The thinktank says that the second route of using waste oils avoids this issue of sustainability but the incentives and demand for filling quotas actually makes used cooking oil more valuable than freshly-refined palm oil. It concludes that there are currently no safeguards in UK or EU biofuel policy for dealing with the indirect impact of biofuels on food security and deforestation. Without these, it says, the UK will not be able to meet its EU obligations sustainably.

Australia combines industry and climate change departments

THE Australian government has merged its departments overlooking climate change and industry as it seeks to apply economic thinking to environmental issues. The move will tie together the functions of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) with the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) as it seeks to improve the connections between climate policy and economic and industry policy and between energy efficiency programmes and the wider energy policy agenda. Climate change is an environmental problem which requires an economic solution, the climate change ministry said in a media statement. That is why we are merging the responsibility for climate change policy into the department responsible for driving innovation and industry policy in our economy. Reducing carbon pollution and transforming the economy to compete in a low-carbon global economy will be key drivers of Australias industrial structure. Industry and innovation policy needs to reflect this imperative, itadded.

may 2013

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