fuelforthought


China’s CNPC Takes the Lead in Latin American Deals as Venezuela Retreats


Chinese oil major China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) made significant investments in place of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PdV), which retreated from its international commitments following the death of the country’s President Hugo Chavez, says an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData (UK).


In a move that will help to diversify the supply of refined products sourced by CNPC for its customers in the Pacific Rim, the company has signed significant deals in Costa Rica and Ecuador. Both projects, which include the largest single capital project in Costa Rica, were negotiated primarily by PdV.


Jeffrey Kerr, GlobalData’s Managing Analyst for Downstream Oil & Gas, says: “Despite PdV being an initial partner and key driving force behind the projects, representatives from the company were largely missing from the signing ceremonies, which suggests that it is scaling back from these investments following the President’s death earlier this year.


“CNPC now appears to be stepping up in PdV’s place to operate within the open market, meaning it will be able to buy and sell refined products, book profits and losses, and apply those earnings against much more fixed earnings from wholesale and retail sales back home.”


In Costa Rica, the Chinese oil major and Costa Rican state-owned oil company Recope signed a deal for a $1.5 billion upgrade of Recope’s 25 thousand-barrels- per-day (mbd) Porto Limon refinery. The upgrade, which includes an atmospheric distillation unit boost to 60 mbd, is due for completion in 2016.


Additionally, CNPC is teaming up with PetroEcuador to help build a 300 mbd Pacifico refinery in El Aromo on the Pacific Coast, to run locally-produced crude oil. As well as participating jointly on future projects with PetroEcuador, the move will also allow CNPC to gain exploration and production rights for its own upstream business in Ecuador.


Kerr concludes: “By signing these deals, CNPC is significantly extending its reach into Latin America, enabling it to continue strengthening its foothold within the region over the coming years. CNPC already has production deals in place in Venezuela, so further crude oil processing just makes sense.”


For More Info, email: 26266pr@reply-direct.com GCxGC Technology Used in Award-Winning Paper


The American Chemical Society (ACS) recently honoured Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute with the prestigious R.A. Glenn Award, which signifies the most innovative and interesting technical paper presented at the Fuel Chemistry Division of the 2013 ACS National Meeting. The award is based on the oral presentation, technical excellence, and the quality of the preprint, and is named in honor of Richard A. Glenn, who served as Assistant Director of Research at Bituminous Coal Research, Inc., and as Chairman of the Fuel Chemistry Division in 1960.


The award is for the technical paper “Sulphur Group Type Response to an Oxidative Desulphurisation Treatment,” which utilised two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC) from LECO and sulphur selective detection to identify that oxidation of sulphides/disulphides/thiophenes and benzothiophenes, the two common sulphur group types in military jet fuels, can be greater than 95% for high sulphur feeds (1400 ppmw). The paper’s authors are Michael Timko of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (lead author); Ezequial Schmois, Pushkaraj Patwardhan, Yulko Kida, Caleb Class, and William Green of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Robert Nelson and Christopher Reddy of the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.


“We used a LECO (USA) GCxGC-TOFMS and a LECO GCxGC-modified with a sulphur detector in order to find and identify sulphur-containing species created during a unique and novel oxidative desulphurisation of jet fuel,” said Robert Nelson. “The goal of this project is to reduce the concentration of sulphur-containing species in jet fuel, which in turn results in lower concentrations of sulphur species in the atmosphere and creates less acid rain.”


The Division of Fuel Chemistry will present the award at the Fall ACS National Meeting in Indianapolis in September. Look for more information in the coming months. 26110pr@reply-direct.com


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The successful integration of Petrotest into the Anton Paar Group is reflected in the change of the company name from Petrotest to Anton Paar ProveTec (Germany) and introduction of the Anton Paar brand into their instrument range.


Petrotest was established in 1873 by Berthold Pensky, the inventor of the Pensky-Martens method, the company has been serving the petrochemical industry for nearly 140 years. Their comprehensive instrument range includes solutions for fuel, lubricant and petrochemical testing. Anton Paar acquired the Petrotest Group in March 2012.


Existing Petrotest customers will now benefit from the renowned high quality of Anton Paar's service and support, through a network of sales partners and 20 subsidiaries around the world. After-sales services range from on-site product training, customer-specific seminars, application support, method development, the provision of certified reference materials and maintenance contracts.


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Petrotest


Becomes Part of Anton Paar


Sofraser Develops Presence in Asia


In 2010, Sofraser (France) began an important development strategy, including R&D, marketing and sales ambitions.


Are you interested in what you have read and want to know more?


PAC (USA), a specialist global provider of advanced analytical instruments for laboratories and online process applications, recently released its latest version of the MicroDist, the most advanced online distillation analyser on the market. Its unique technology provides complete and accurate distillation and density analysis in a single instrument. With the new density analysis, the applications for the MicroDist are expanded, including calculating the Cetane Index for diesel fuel process streams and intermediate blends according to ASTM D4737 and D976.


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2 - Any questions you have will be received by someone who can help with your enquiry.


In order to further develop sales and presence in Asia, Sofraser decided to initiate distribution collaboration with Advanced Holdings Group in China, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.


As of June 21, 2013, Sofraser is pleased to announce that the company, Advanced Engineering Holdings PTE LTD, has subscribed new shares constituting 31% of the enlarged capital of SAS Sofraser.


This association will reinforce Sofraser’s worldwide ambitious strategy, and doesn’t imply changes in our international distributors’ network.


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