Fire engulfs kerosene unit at Mina Abdulla

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A fire shut down a kerosene unit in the refinery of Mina Abdulla, Kuwait state news agency KUNA said. Officials are investigating the cause of the fire, which was extinguished by early Wednesday, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The head of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Hashem Hashem, said the expected reason of the fire is a mechanical failure at one of the pumps.

There are no casualties, Hashem said.

The other Mina Abdulla refinery units are operating normally, he added.

Kuwait National Petroleum Company’s (KNPC) plans the retirement of existing processing facilities at Shuaiba and a major upgrade and expansion of the Mina Al Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah refineries to integrate the refining system into one complex with full conversion operation. The Fluor-led joint venture with Daewoo Engineering & Construction and Hyundai Heavy Industries is responsible for engineering, procurement and construction as well as associated pre-commissioning and testing support for the Mina Abdullah Package 2. After commissioning, both the Mina Abdullah and Mina Al Ahmadi refineries will have a capacity of 800,000 barrels-per-stream day to supply local and international demand for clean fuels meeting the most stringent environmental requirements.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The chemical company ELIX Polymers has renewed its EcoVadis GOLD level Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) certification in the ranking published by EcoVadis, an independent rating agency specialising in sustainable development and performance control, as per the company's press release.

The company obtained its first certification in 2017, with the highest level of recognition, and in 2019, following the renewal audit, it again achieved the GOLD level, increasing its rating by 8 points with respect to 2017.

This is the highest level currently awarded by EcoVadis, following an exhaustive evaluation based on a system which rates 21 criteria that follow international CSR standards, such as the Global Compact, the International Labour Organisation, the Global Reporting Initiative and the ISO 26000 standard.

The overall result obtained by ELIX Polymers places the company head and shoulders above its competitors, making it one of the 2% of evaluated companies with the highest score. EcoVadis evaluates 20,000 manufacturers from 99 countries and in 150 different business sectors. The evaluation consists of 4 scores that assess the company’s milestones and development in areas related to the environment, social/human rights, ethics/fair business practices and supply chain, thus reflecting the performance of ELIX Polymers in CSR.

Judith Banus, Head of the Corporate Social Responsibility Programme at ELIX Polymers, commented: "We are proud to have obtained this award, which acknowledges the effort made by the different areas of the company to improve sustainability management".

ELIX Polymers is firmly committed to corporate social responsibility and puts all its effort into maintaining a strategic sustainable management line that enables us to obtain prestigious certifications such as EcoVadis Gold.

As MRC reported earlier, ELIX Polymers announced a new investment amounting to EUR4 million, whose objective is to optimize its ABS powder production facilities. The company began executing this new project in 2018, which it will continue to develop and consolidate throughout the year of 2019.

ELIX Polymers is one of the most important manufacturers of ABS resins and derivatives in Europe, with 40 years of experience in engineering plastics and an installed capacity of 180,000/year from their plant in Tarragona (Spain) to the world. The operation starts in 1975, when the Tarragona ABS and SAN production plant was inaugurated.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Cyberhawk, a world leader in drone inspection technologies and visualization software for UAV data, has signed a global teaming agreement with John Zink Hamworthy Combustion (JZHC), a world-leading authority on flares, burners and emissions control and a pioneer in smart combustion solutions, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Cyberhawk will be supporting JZHC with aerial inspections of industrial assets and comprehensive inspection reporting worldwide. JZHC and Cyberhawk inspection engineers will collaborate to analyze and assess all integrity aspects of UAV flare inspection data, with JZHC providing operational, remediation and/or replacement recommendations. A complete and comprehensive report will be presented to the customer following each inspection.

JZHC designs some of the world’s most advanced flaring and combustion systems. Decades of research and development are incorporated into every flare design to provide unsurpassed reliability, safety, efficiency and cost effectiveness. With the advent of safer, more reliable live UAV flare inspections over the last decade, operators now expect to see aerial solutions offered as part of these solutions.

Since completing the first drone flare inspection in 2010, Cyberhawk is the only global UAV inspection company which has inspected more than 800 flares, consisting of both onshore and offshore, in over 30 countries.

Over the last decade, the use of drones for industrial asset inspections has grown significantly. The ability to inspect in-service flares can eliminate millions of dollars of OPEX from a company’s bottom line. Detection and monitoring of changes to an operational flare system could potentially avoid future unplanned shutdowns because of the early detection. These dollars can be better served through upgrading systems and/or designing preventative UAV inspection programs.

The safety risks presented by traditional access methods are also eliminated, including working at significant heights and in a potentially hazardous industrial environment.

While using drone-mounted cameras to capture detailed visual and thermal data, typical components inspected include the flare tip, pilot burners, stack, ladders, platforms, molecular seal and steam lines. The imagery obtained is analyzed and recommendations are provided. This lends to better maintenance planning and decision-making processes for the customer. For instance, preparing accurate turnaround workscopes and supporting scheduling and the sourcing of labor.

Cyberhawk has teamed-up with JZHC to provide expert analysis of flare inspection imagery. JZHC’s decades of experience in flare solutions will enhance Cyberhawk’s already world class inspection reports. In many cases, the inspection imagery can indicate operational anomalies. By analyzing Cyberhawk’s imagery, JZHC may be able to identify and recommend proactive actions to mitigate operational issues before they result in punitive regulatory action.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell announced a first-of-its-kind technology integration with Intel that will enable new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in its MAXPRO® connected security platform, said the company.

The new security platform, which will support MAXPRO Network Video Recorders (NVR) and Video Management Systems (VMS), will incorporate Intel® Vision products that enable advanced analytics, deep learning and facial recognition capabilities. These greatly enhanced security solutions will drive cost and time savings by significantly reducing false alarms and will meet compliance requirements such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) through identity anonymization.

"Ensuring the security of commercial buildings and the safety of those within them has always been Honeywell's top priority," said Pete Lau, President, Commercial Security, Honeywell. "With emerging technology like analytics, facial recognition and deep learning, Honeywell and Intel are connecting buildings and protecting people like never before."

Advances in security and surveillance technology have increased demand for high-definition video and imaging offered by Internet Protocol (IP) cameras. The video surveillance global market is estimated to exceed $68 billion by 2023. At the same time, the technology to properly process the surge in vision data has lagged. End users require a solution that combines both building security and IT systems to address the challenge.

The integration of Intel Vision Products into the Honeywell MAXPRO NVR and VMS products will result in solutions that enhance site security and operator productivity. These integrated, customizable products will accelerate the processing time of each video stream and increase the number of cameras that can stream in real time through a single device. The adoption of Intel® Vision Accelerator Design products will provide Honeywell's security offerings with advanced AI capabilities with computational efficiency, allowing them to analyze video data with improved detection accuracy.

"With rapid advances in AI technology fueled by the influx of enormous amounts of visual data, our customers are presented with powerful new opportunities in multiple areas including edge video analytics and security," said Jonathan Ballon, Vice President, Intel Internet of Things Group. "The Honeywell MAXPRO solution, powered by Intel Vision Products, allows customers to process and analyze visual data in near real-time to make decisions faster, drive faster time to results and help ensure secure buildings, campus environments and banking institutions."

Beyond the software and hardware integrations, the partnership will also leverage the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit, which fast tracks the development of computer vision and deep learning inference into vision applications. Through the toolkit, end users can accelerate computer vision performance, shorten vision solution development, and streamline deep learning inference and deployment.

The toolkit's deep learning capabilities will support Honeywell's Face Recognition analytics, providing another layer of detail in the software that allows it to learn faces of known entities in an organization. The software is also capable of removing face recognition data it doesn't recognize in compliance with GDPR requirements.

Honeywell will join the Intel IoT Solutions Alliance (ISA) and participate in Intel IoT RFP Ready Kits. A global organization comprised of more than 250 technology companies, ISA is dedicated to the development of scalable IoT and machine internet solutions. Intel IoT RFP Ready Kits are focused technology offerings that solve a class of market problems, have been deployed and tested in the field, and provide bundled hardware, software and support. The technology is designed to grow with customer requirements.

Honeywell MAXPRO and Face Recognition are among a suite of vision security solutions alongside Xtralis LoiterTrace, an image analysis tool that identifies and tracks suspicious activity, and Xtralis IntrusionTrace, a video analytics program for real-time intrusion detection. The solutions suite is ideal for high traffic, sensitive environments including enterprise campuses, pharmaceutical companies, and banking and financial institutions.

Honeywell Building Technologies (HBT) is a global business with more than 23,000 employees. HBT creates products, software and technologies found in more than 10 million buildings worldwide.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The amount of oil in storage in Alberta rose in February, monthly data shows, despite moves by the government of Canada’s largest crude-producing province to reduce inventories by imposing curtailments on production, reported Reuters.

The reason is a sharp decline in crude by rail shipments, analysts say. A significantly narrower discount on Canadian crude compared with US barrels as a result of the curtailments has made rail shipments uneconomic.

Alberta had 72 million barrels of oil in inventories at the end of February, according to data from the Alberta Energy Regulator, an increase of 3.9 million barrels from the end of January. That means during the first two months of the year storage inventories only dropped by 2.3 million barrels.

"The balancing act for the government is a very steep task because they have to manage all these variables," said Mike Walls, senior crude oil analyst with Genscape. "The government did not expect rail would drop off as steeply as it did and that’s had a dampening effect" on inventory draws.

The AER reports all the crude stored in infrastructure in Alberta, including pipelines and refineries, as well as the main tank farms, which means its inventory totals are often much higher than that of other information providers like Genscape.

Alberta is in the midst of a general election campaign, and Cheryl Oates, spokeswoman for the ruling New Democratic Party’s campaign, said the government used data from a third-party energy data firm to track crude storage levels.

"That data shows that storage is down since the curtailment policy took effect in January and has been more or less stable since February," Oates said. "We are watching storage data closely to ensure it remains below capacity."

The province last year imposed mandatory production cuts, effective Jan. 1, 2019, after the congestion on export pipelines pushed the discount on Canadian heavy crude versus US barrels to record levels. Premier Rachel Notley said at the time the province had 16 million barrels too many in storage.

Canadian crude by rail volumes hit a record high of 354,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December, according to Canadian regulator the National Energy Board, before declining.

Canadian producer Imperial Oil blasted the government for making rail uneconomic and cut shipments from nearly 170,000 bpd to near zero in February. Imperial said last week it has restarted shipping a small amount.

Genscape’s Walls said that from a price perspective curtailments are working, but fundamental data suggested the discount on Canadian barrels should be wider.

Canadian heavy crude was last trading around $8.20 per barrel below West Texas Intermediate benchmark crude, according to Net Energy Exchange. Traders in Calgary say a price differential of around USD15 a barrel between Canadian and US barrels is needed to make rail economic.

“At around USD10 a barrel off WTI for April delivery and around USD9 a barrel off WTI for May delivery, pricing incentives generally aren’t on board to draw barrels from storage on rail,” they wrote,” analysts at TPH Energy Research said in a recent note.
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