October 31, 2008 by admin.

ICIS News

Tunisia to halt some ferts output, sulphur delivery
30 October 2008 16:30

By Rebecca Clarke

LONDON (ICIS news)–Tunisian phosphates producer Groupe Chimique Tunisien (GCT) will stop production at two sites and has asked sulphur suppliers to delay, or in some cases cancel, shipments due to high stock levels, market sources said on Thursday….

Black Sea sulphur suppliers reported that GCT asked them to delay or cancel cargoes scheduled to be delivered before the end of the year so that the producer can avoid having to store all the volumes.

Suppliers also noted that there is a long queue of vessels already waiting to discharge in Tunisia….(Full Story)

Posted in World Sulphur Glut | Print | No Comments »

October 10, 2007 by admin.

BiopactU.S. DOE to invest $197 million in three large carbon sequestration projects

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announces that it has awarded the first three large-scale carbon sequestration projects in the United States and the largest single set in the world to date. The three projects - Plains Carbon Dioxide Reduction Partnership; Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership; and Southwest Regional Partnership for Carbon Sequestration - will conduct large volume tests for the storage of one million or more tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep saline reservoirs….(Full Story)

One of those carbon (and hydrogen-sulphide) sequestration projects involves the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Specifically in relation to Alberta,

A second test will be conducted in northwestern Alberta, Canada, and will demonstrate the co-sequestration of CO2 and hydrogen sulfide from a large gas-processing plant into a deep saline formation. This will provide data about how hydrogen sulfide affects the sequestration process. The Plains partnership includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin, along with the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba….(Full Story)

Given that the plant-gate price per long ton of waste sulphur in Alberta saw a steady decline from a high of $56.24 in May 2003 down to $0.00 in July 2007, it is very curious that HAZCO intends to establish a sulphur-forming and -processing facility to the east of Bruderheim, especially given the fact of HAZCO’s statements to the extent that one of the previously faltered proposals for such a facility in Thorhild County was allegedly canned by HAZCO because at that time there was a similar slump in waste-sulphur prices.

Due to the low prices for Alberta waste-sulphur that will now most likely prevail for many years to come, it would appear that HAZCO’s proposal for sulphur forming and processing in Lamont County is now even less likely to ever be economical in relation to the Canadian economy than it was when the Thorhild proposal got scrapped.

However, sulphur-processors, -shippers and -handlers still get paid as long as they manage to  inject sulphur into the glutted word market, regardless of  what the world market price for sulphur happens to be, as long as  Canada wants to get rid of its waste-sulphur, and as long as the taxpayers and end-consumers of oil and gas are willing to pay the price.

It appears that the only viable process for HAZCO (but of course only through subsidization by end consumers of oil-refinery products) is the long-term storing of waste-sulphur in Lamont County.  HAZCO vehemently insists it has no interest in pursuing that option.

See also Sulphur glut poses storage nightmare.

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

September 10, 2007 by admin.

Gulf Daily News

MANAMA [Bahrain]: A senior Bapco official [acting chief executive Abdulkarim Al Sayed] has praised the firm’s staff for their teamwork on efforts in the firm’s Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (LSFO) activities….

The visit coincided with attainment of the peak activities of maintenance work, 2HDU revamp and tie-ins for the Refinery Gas Desulphurisation Project….(Full Story)
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Note by folc.ca: Bahrain presently does not permit storing of sulphur in blocks. That means that the waste-sulphur produced at the Babco refinery at Manama must be sold into the glutted world market.

Posted in World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Ultra-Low-Sulphur Diesel, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »

September 10, 2007 by admin.

Detroit Free Press

Marathon would spend $2 million to install stations

Marathon Petroleum Co. expects to spend $2 million to install air quality monitoring stations that would warn residents near its southwest Detroit refinery of environmental problems.

The monitors are part of Marathon’s three-year, $1-billion plan to increase refinery production in Detroit by 15%….

“We’re spending more than $300 million for pollution controls at the Detroit refinery,” said James Wilkins, manager of the Refining Environmental & Safety division.

The Marathon expansion holds the promise of 800 construction jobs starting early next year through 2010. The project also could help stabilize fuel prices for Michigan motorists by adding about 630,000 gallons of gas a day to the market.

Marathon’s plan for growth calls for the use of so-called heavy crude oil that comes from Canada’s tar sands, primarily in northern Alberta. Unlike the light-sweet crude from Saudi Arabia and other places, heavy crude has a higher sulfur content [emphasis by folc.ca] and is more difficult to process cleanly…. (Full Story)
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Note by folc.ca: The U.S. presently does not permit storing of sulphur in blocks. That means that the waste-sulphur produced at Marathon’s Michigan refinery will most likely result in reduced U.S. import volumes of Canadian waste-sulphur. Not only that, but some of the waste-sulphur produced by Marathon will result in competition for sales of Canadian waste-sulphur in a glutted world market.

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

September 2, 2007 by admin.

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 28, 2007 by admin.

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 admin.

‘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 admin.

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 7, 2007 by admin.

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 »

May 7, 2007 by admin.

Edmonton Journal; Page A18 Opinion
(Original source-location)

Residents need protection from stockpiles of this flammable byproduct of oilsands processing

BY DENNIS MASCHMEYER
and BARRY EASTWOOD
(Full Story)

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