September 5, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

landlinemag.com

A federal court has stopped California from enforcing a new fuel standard designed to cut use of bunker fuel from cargo ships as they reach ports in the Golden State….

The Long Beach Press-Telegram reported that bunker fuel contains sulfur content as high as 27,000 parts per million, compared with U.S. diesel limits on cars and trucks of sulfur no higher than 15 parts per million….(Full Story)
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Note by folc.ca: At 27,000 parts per million, bunker fuel used by diesel-powered ships and locomotives contains 1,800 times as much sulphur by volume than does ultra-low-sulphur (ULS) Diesel at 15 parts per million used by highway trucks.
It appears that the [U.S.] EPA adamantly protects a system for waste-sulphur disposal through dispersion in the environment. Why would the EPA do that?

See also:

• California legislation regarding marine diesels and sulfur-containing diesel fuel (Feb. 21, 2007)

Posted in Bunker Fuel, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics, Ultra-Low-Sulphur Diesel | 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.

Foreign Policy Association — Central Asia

Kazakhstan vs. ENI: Showdown

….in general oil majors operating in Kazakhstan are dealing with some seemingly unresolvable problems. We don’t like sulfur in our fuels, for instance; sour gas creates more pollution and is harder to refine. When that sulfur is extracted out, it goes into a world market that is supply-glutted. Many of the environmental violations for oil in Kazakhstan have to do with a sulfur that nobody wants, causes pollution, and that oil companies would be more than happy to get rid of at almost any low price you could name….(Full Story)
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Right, and how will HAZCO make money on the sulphur it alleges it will produce in Bruderheim for the world market?

As to “any low price you could name”, oil companies operating in Alberta gave about $10 for each tonne of sulphur that anyone took off their hands in the second half of 2001, and they gave their sulphur away for nothing in the summer of 2007.

Right now the plant-gate price of sulphur is $40 a tonne, far short of recovering the cost of production or of shipping it to Vancouver and loading it there for export.

Nevertheless, even though there is no money to be made by the Canadian economy for exporting sulphur, sulphur processors, shippers and handlers get paid and make money.

Guess out of whose wallet that money comes. — folc.ca

Posted in Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hazco, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics | Print | No Comments »

June 14, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

‘Gorilla’ revealed

Dallas company plans to build oil refinery
By Josh Verges

ELK POINT [South Dakota] - A Texas energy company looking to build what it calls an environmentally friendly oil refinery outed itself Wednesday as Union County’s “Gorilla” project.

….The project [by Hyperion Resources Inc. of Dallas] would refine 400,000 barrels of oil into low-sulfur gasoline and diesel fuel each day, enough to serve South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, said Richard Benda, state tourism and development secretary.

The refinery would be the first built in the country since 1976 and comes at a time when politicians are looking to sever the marriage to Middle East oil….

Hyperion plans to pipe in crude oil from Canada, but how they’d do it is uncertain.

A Canadian firm, TransCanada, is planning a pipeline that would move 435,000 barrels of crude oil per day [to] South Dakota by 2009. Trans-Canada spokesman Jeff Rauh said Wednesday that the pipeline is not related to Hyperion, and the two companies have not met….

The refinery would be the “most environmentally sound energy center in the United States,” protecting air and water quality and producing ultra-low sulfur gasoline and diesel, the company said. Water used to cool the plant - reported by project planners to be 12 million gallons daily - would be returned to the Missouri River cleaner than it is extracted, Phillips said…. (Full story, more stories on the same subject)

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Note by folc.ca:
No one in that or in any of the related articles mentioned what will be done with the waste sulphur the new refinery will produce.  Exports of sulphur by the US were 822,000 tonnes in 2004 and are forecasted to increase to 1.5 million tonnes in 2010, while exports of sulphur from Canada to the US were 2.1 million tonnes in 2006 and are forecasted to decrease to 400,000 tonnes in 2020.  The impact of the new refinery on those import and export figures is not reflected in the numbers. (More detailed waste-sulphur market figures — 1.7 MB PPT file)
A barrel of oil has a volume of 159 litres.  The prohibition on storing waste sulphur in blocks in the US dictates that Canadian synthetic crude oil must be shipped after having been desulphurized.  That means that for every barrel of synthetic crude oil shipped to the US roughly 7.95 litres or 16.7 kg of sulphur will be produced and require disposal in Canada.
The shipment of an additional 400,000 bpd to South Dakota will cause 6,678 tonnes of sulphur to be produced in Canada, with the requirement to either sell that daily volume of sulphur into the saturated world market (a clear impossibility) or to store that much additional sulphur each day.  The only other alternative would be to stop the production of synthetic crude oil.  Quite clearly, that won’t happen.

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Ultra-Low-Sulphur Diesel | Print | No Comments »

May 23, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Presentation by the Friends of Lamont County

Information regarding the world sulphur glut and other related issues The view-graph presentation provided to concerned residents of Lamont County 2007 05 09 took place in the meeting room of the Lamont Arena. Many residents attended.  The mayor of Mundare was there.  No other elected officials from Lamont County or any of its municipalities were present.

The presentation will be given in Bruderheim early in June.  An exact date for the presentation in Bruderheim has not yet been set but will be announced soon.  Watch the Lamont Leader and look also for a flyer in your mail.

A copy of the PowerPoint presentation regarding the world sulphur glut and other concerns related to sulphur can be accessed through this link. (1.7MB PPT file)

Posted in Explosions & Fires, Community & Industry, Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 8, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Shell’s Misleading Ad: Complaints Submitted, ‘Oil Refineries Emit Smoke Not Flowers’

BELGIUM, UK, THE NETHERLANDS - May 8 -Complaints are being filed today, May 8, in three European countries against a shameless advert that makes exaggerated and misleading green claims about oil giant Shell’s operations.

Friends of the Earth International is filing simultaneous complaints to the national advertising standards authorities of Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK about Shell’s advert which depicts the outline of an oil refinery emitting flowers rather than smoke and claims that it uses its “waste CO2 to grow flowers and [its] waste sulphur to make concrete”….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics | Print | No Comments »

May 7, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Arabianbusiness.com

by Stuart Matthews on Monday, 07 May 2007

The continued worldwide development of sour oil and gas reserves is having an impact on the global sulphur market.

According to Peter Clark, technical manager for Alberta Sulphur Research (ASR), voluntary sulphur production has almost ceased in the last few years. Speaking on the sidelines of last week’s Sour Oil & Gas Advanced Technology (SOGAT) conference in Abu Dhabi, Clark explained that the amount of sulphur created by sour oil and gas treatment exceeds world demand.

“Future development of heavy oil and bitumen in Alberta, Canada, has the potential to completely overwhelm the world market. We need to look at adopting new strategies.” ….

(The article goes on to explain that sulphur could be used as a fuel for power plants, with the sulphur-dioxide that will then be produced to be injected into the ground. Full Story — off-site)

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

April 18, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

CNW Group

OTTAWA, April 18 /CNW/ - Canada’s largest shipper of sulphur is very pleased that the Federal Government, with the support of the Liberal opposition, has taken quick and decisive action to end to the ongoing rail service disruptions at CN by passing back-to-work legislation.

“I’m very pleased that the federal government and Parliament have taken quick action to protect jobs, consumers, the environment and the economy in Western Canada,” said Lorne Friberg, President and CEO of Sultran. “The service disruptions at CN were already hurting sulphur producers still recovering from the February strike.”

The back-to-work legislation helps ensure that natural gas plants in Western Canada will not have to cut back or stop production due to a lack of sulphur storage capacity. The legislation will also permit the Canadian sulphur industry to continue to ship sulphur uninterrupted to its overseas customers….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics | Print | No Comments »

April 12, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

CNW GroupOTTAWA, April 12 /CNW/ - The representative of more than 20 producers and shippers of sulphur in Western Canada is calling on all federal parties to protect jobs, health and safety and the environment, by immediately passing legislation that will bring a speedy end to the current CN rail labour disruptions….

Friberg explained that if Sulphur can’t be transported by rail, the only options are to store the product on-site at plants or shut down oil and gas production. “From an environmental, safety or economic perspective, neither is a sustainable solution. It’s essential that Parliament act now,” he says….

Continued disruptions will force plants to store sulphur on-site as formed product or in storage blocks. As plants reach critical inventory levels, sulphur production will have to be significantly curtailed, which could result in a serious decrease (or elimination) of natural gas production….(Full Story)

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »