Lee Nichols, Vice President, Content/Editor-in-Chief
According to data from Gulf Energy Information’s Global Energy Infrastructure database, total active projects in the hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI) have increased nearly 30% year-over-year (y-o-y). In total, active projects in the refining, petrochemicals and gas processing/LNG sectors have increased from < 1,000 to nearly 1,250 y-o-y (FIG. 1). These projects equate to more than $2.3 T in capital investments around the world.
When broken down by sector, most active project growth occurred in the gas processing/LNG industry, which saw a 54% increase in total active projects y-o-y. The petrochemicals and refining industries saw increases of 29% and 15%, respectively. Overall, the refining sector is still the leader in total active project market share:
The Asia-Pacific region continues to be the dominant area for active HPI projects, followed by the Middle East and the U.S. These three regions represent nearly 65% of total active project market share—the Asia-Pacific region alone represents nearly 40%. A breakdown in active project market share by region is shown in FIG. 2.
Focus: The project lifecycle. As industrial facility construction becomes more complex, it is imperative that engineering and construction companies—along with project owners—are up-to-date on the latest technologies and developments to effectively design, engineer and construct HPI facilities. The magnitude of construction projects has evolved over the past several decades: it is now common to see capital project investments in the hundreds of millions of dollars to more than $1 B. This is especially true with large-scale integrated complexes that can easily cost more than $10 B.
These capital-intensive projects come with many challenges, which is why HPI professionals must be educated on the latest advancements in this sector. Hydrocarbon Processing has devoted this month’s issue to the topic of plant design, engineering, construction and commissioning. This issue provides several technical articles and case studies on resources and capacity optimization, considerations when designing piping and fired heaters, and other useful technologies and examples to engineer an efficient running plant.
With so much on the line, these tools and resources are imperative to help expand the industry’s knowledge on best practices that can lead to not only a successful project lifecycle, but also a good foundation to begin operations. HP