September 21, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

StockInterview, Inc.

Rusty Oil & Gas Pipelines Could Drive Molybdenum Price Higher, Part One

As long as air conditioners keep us cool in the summer and central heating warms us in the winter, all is well in the world. In order to keep this gas and electricity continuously flowing into our homes, molybdenum has emerged as an essential metal to help preserve challenging energy transportation network. The anti-corrosive qualities found in molybdenum could also help prevent the collapse of the U.S. energy infrastructure….

In the absence of water, hydrogen sulphide is non-corrosive to pipelines. However, increased moisture in pipelines is problematic, because it activates the corrosive capabilities of hydrogen sulphide. A combination of tensile stress, susceptibility of low-alloy steels and chemical corrosion will lead to sulfide stress cracking. Hydrogen ions weaken the steel. Over time, pressure causes the embrittled steel in the pipeline to rupture.

Similar problems have emerged in the natural gas sector. As deeper wells are drilled in hot, high-pressure gas deposits, the probability of hydrogen sulphide in gas can increase. An entire industry has sprung up around decontaminating sour gas. U.S. sulfur production from gas processing plants accounts for about 15 percent of the total U.S. production of sulfur…. (Full Story)

Posted in Sulphur Logistics, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

September 4, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

al.com

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — Problems at a natural gas platform near Dauphin Island may have been responsible for a cloud of toxic gas that swept across the island’s east end and sickened dozens of people, an ExxonMobil official said Tuesday.

Dauphin Island Sea Lab classrooms were evacuated, and a half dozen people visited the town’s doctor apparently after exposure to hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous and foul-smelling gas that occurs naturally underground with highly sought methane….

Ordinarily, when operations shut down and the entire system “de-pressurizes,” any deadly hydrogen sulfide in the gas escaping through the vent is burned, or “flared,” and converted to sulfur dioxide, another toxic gas more quickly dispersed by the nearly constant sea breeze….(Full Story)

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

September 2, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Reuters

By Simon Webb

DUBAI, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Four international oil companies have bid for a multibillion-dollar project to develop the Shah sour gas field in the United Arab Emirates, company and industry sources said on Sunday….

ConocoPhillips …, Exxon Mobil …, Occidental Petroleum … and Royal Dutch Shell … were all in the race for the project. The gas has a content of around 30 percent of potentially deadly hydrogen sulphide, making it tougher to produce than conventional gas reserves….(emphasis by folc.ca; Full Story and links)
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Note by folc.ca: Given that the UAE presently forbids stock-piling and long-term storage of sulphur, that will increase the sulphur glut on the world market to an enormous extent.

Posted in World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

August 31, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

“Tough” Oil and Hydrogen-Sulphide.

By folc.ca

According to oil-industry experts and analysts, we are beginning to enter the second half of the history of oil exploration — not as far as time goes but with respect to the volumes of recoverable oil. It is ever more difficult and expensive — even politically and financially risky — to find and explore oil reserves now.

Oil from the Alberta tar-sands is expensive to mine and contains between 4.5 percent to 7 percent sulphur, while oil in Kazakhstan is as deep as 5,000 metres or more and contains easily up to 19 percent hydrogen-sulphide at enormous pressures.

To sell the massive and escalating volumes of the waste sulphur recovered from oil and gas into a “supply-glutted” world market is so tough that the oil companies would do it at just about any price - give it away and even give money to boot, if they only could find someone who will take it off their hands. The sulphur removed from oil or natural gas needs to be stored somewhere, a good portion of it quite likely at our backdoor, less than just two miles east of Bruderheim, Alberta.

To get that Kazakhstan oil to market is another issue, fraught with geo-political complications.

The experts agree that world oil output will begin to decline by about 2012. However, a country self-sufficient in energy sources may have to think about how it will stay also independent. That is something that for some countries has already proven itself to be a hard thing to do.

On Tap: The Tough-Oil Era

There is, however, a second aspect to peak-oil theory, which is no less relevant when it comes to the global-supply picture — one that is far easier to detect and assess today. Peak-oil theorists have long contended that the first half of the world’s oil to be extracted and consumed will be the easy half. They are referring, of course, to the oil that’s found on shore or near to shore; oil close to the surface and concentrated in large reservoirs; oil produced in friendly, safe, and welcoming places.

The other half — what (if they are right) is left of the world’s petroleum supply — is the tough oil. They mean oil that’s buried far offshore or deep underground; oil scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places. An oil investor’s eye-view of our energy planet today quickly reveals that we already seem to be entering the tough-oil era. This explains the growing pessimism among industry analysts as well as certain changes in behavior in the energy marketplace….(Full Story)

“Tough” oil is oil that may cause wars to be fought, more easily now than in the preceding “easy” oil era. Some writers have something to say about that, too.

See more stories on this topic.

Posted in Community & Industry, Sulphur Logistics, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

August 28, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Edmonton SUN

Syncrude operation too smelly
Alberta government orders company to cut back emissions

By CP

Alberta Environment has ordered oil and gas producer Syncrude to cut back emissions from an operation in northern Alberta.

The government says the move is in response to public complaints about the smell, as well as monitoring of hydrogen sulphide near the company’s effluent pond on Mildred Lake, northwest of Fort McMurray.

Under the order, Syncrude must develop an interim action plan by Sept. 4 to minimize hydrogen sulphide and ammonia emissions from the pond, with a long-term plan due no later than Oct. 1….(Full Story)

See more stories on this topic.

Posted in Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

August 27, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

DNRonline.com

Hydrogen Sulfide Culprit in Deaths at Briery Branch Farm
Toxic Gas From Manure Pit Killed Five People

By Jeff Mellott

MONTEZUMA — A deadly gas that killed five people on a farm south of Briery Branch in early July was Hydrogen Sulfide, and not methane as authorities had previously reported….

A meter reading of the gas at the edge of the pit by rescue workers, Phillips said, was at 700 parts per million.

The amount is well above the 500 parts per million that would have been sufficient to fatally incapacitate someone in a matter of moments.

“Anybody who had gone down there without a complete supply of air for themselves would not have made it back,” Phillips said of the manure pit at the Showalter farm….(Full Story)

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

May 15, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

The Daily Post [New Zealand]

By ABIGAIL CASPARI and KELLY MAKIHA

Research into the long term health effects of hydrogen sulphide in Rotorua was prompted by earlier evidence linking illness with exposure to low levels of the gas.

In five years Rotorua residents should know for sure if there are negative health effects from living in the “Sulphur City” or if it’s just a case of a bad smell. A team of nine experts from New Zealand and the United States have embarked on a five-year research project investigating the health effects of being exposed to low levels of hydrogen sulphide over a long period. The team includes academics, optometrists, statisticians, health and geothermal experts….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

May 9, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Daily Mirror, e-edition

Of all the rapidly developing countries, China is the most fascinating. The country is vast, its history and culture right up to Maoist times exotic, it’s present rate of development dizzying, and it’s poised to be the next superpower. Goods made in China, cheaper than Japanese products, have found a place in most households across Asia and Africa.

Behind this happy picture, however, there is a less evident and highly disturbing tale of environmental disaster. Chinese leaders are finally showing signs that they know what’s happening. In the 11th five-year plan, the economic policy blueprint approved in 2005, they announced a change of emphasis that in some ways admitted knowledge of the degree of environmental degradation behind China’s great leap forward in industry during the past two decades….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Acid Rain, Pollution: Health Issues, Community & Industry, Nitrogen-Oxides, Heavy-Metal Poisoning & Pollution, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

March 23, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

MercuryNews.com
The Associated Press

TORRANCE, Calif.- Toxic fumes were released from an oil refinery but nobody was injured, authorities said.

Hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide were released into flares at the ExxonMobil Torrance Refinery after the plant south of Los Angeles had a problem with its sulfur recovery unit and shut down shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday, officials said.

The flare system acts as a “safety relief valve” for the refinery that combines liquid and vapors with steam and burns it off, according to information on the refinery’s Web site.

The gas level at the ground did not pose a health hazard, refinery spokeswoman Melba Duarte said.  (Full Story)

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

November 24, 2006 by Walter Schneider.

Source (off-site)

French engineering and construction services company Technip has been awarded a contract worth approximately €67 million by PKN Orlen S.A. for the construction of a new diesel oil hydrodesulphurization unit in its refinery in Plock, in the center of Poland.

Hydrodesulphurization is a catalytic refining technology consisting in extracting sulphur contained in a petroleum product either to protect downstream unit catalysts or to maintain sulphur content at the level prescribed by the European norm intended to reduce transportation-related air pollution.

Technip’s operations and engineering center in Rome, Italy, will execute the project. The construction of the unit is scheduled to be completed in June 2009.
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Note by folc.ca: The story would have been much more informative if it had addressed how much waste sulphur will be produced by the process and what will be done with that waste sulphur.
That issue will greatly interest anyone wishing to make a living from selling sulphur produced by large desulpurization projects.

Posted in World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Ultra-Low-Sulphur Diesel, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »