Speaker Abstracts

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Bob Nimocks
President, Zeus Development Corporation

Supply is currently the primary ingredient needed to propel LNG markets forward.  Delays in projects have slowed world-trade growth to about 4%, creating a shortage of LNG and surplus of receiving capacity. 

Six relatively unpredictable nations -- Russia, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Algeria and Libya -- hold the key to greatly expanded volumes of LNG and consequently the industry's capability to transform itself from a tightly supplied seller's market to a more fluid and dynamic buyer's market capable.  What are these nation's priorities and policies towards gas exportation?  How is this affecting project development? How much LNG might flow from them into world markets and when? How will world trade volumes improve relative to markets?

This presentation will draw from Zeus' Virtual Energy Library ™, an online repository of world gas-development statistics, to review how the tightness of supply has arisen, the long-term market implications and the path forward, especially in relation to these six nations.  Zeus Development Corporation is an energy consultancy and publisher that focuses on world gas development.  Nimocks founded the company in 1991. 

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What Caused Tower Malfunctions In The Last 50 Years?
Henry Z. Kister
Fluor Corp., Aliso Viejo, CA

Over nine hundred case histories of malfunctioning towers reported over the last 50 years were surveyed and analyzed. Our analysis shows rapid growth in the number of malfunctions with no signs of decline. Plugging, especially of tray active areas, packing and distributors, tops the malfunctions list. Coking (refinery towers only), scale and corrosion, and precipitation were the most common causes. The tower base comes second, where liquid level rising above the reboiler inlet caused premature flood and even internals damage or tower overfilling. Attention to level measurement and kettle reboiler pressure balance are key preventive measures. Next follow tower internals damage, abnormal operation incidents (startup, shutdown, commissioning), assembly mishaps, packing liquid distributors, intermediate draws, misleading measurements, reboilers, and explosions. Tray design and tower simulation, two topics that receive much attention in the literature, are not high up on the malfunction list. The survey teaches numerous lessons on each of the malfunctions which are invaluable for achieving trouble-free design and operation of distillation towers.

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Roadmap to More Sustainable Industries
Beth Beloff, Director of Bridges to Sustainability at
Golder Associates and Project Manager for the Center for Sustainable Technology Practices

As chemical companies continue down the path towards developing sustainable products and services, a number of key decision points occur where sustainability thinking must be integrated.  The Center for Sustainable Technology Practices, an industry consortium of the AIChE Institute for Sustainability, has developed a sustainability roadmap: a mental map that connects the critical corporate functions in a company with the major value chain stages and important sustainability considerations at each of those stages.  This roadmap is designed to identify and harmonize decision points along the business process with sustainability while providing ways to measure progress.  It is a tool that facilitates organizational learning regarding sustainability.  In this presentation a review of the current status of the roadmap will be presented and the upcoming workshops on this roadmap will be announced.

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