Hydrocarbon Processing - September 2022 - 108

History of the HPI
technologies for use in several different
industrial applications, including process
automation for the refining and petrochemical
sectors. The proliferation of
fieldbus technologies in the late 1980s-
mid-1990s led to many different systems
that were not compatible with competing
technologies, and several international
standards organizations fought for
their fieldbus standard to be accepted
by industry. This predicament-known
as the fieldbus wars-led to many users
trying to seek a unified standard that enabled
them to utilize different/competing
technologies (i.e., a plug-and-play
solution).248
The fieldbus wars included
FIG. 1. View of the Pearl GTL plant. Photo courtesy of Shell.
on this processing technology took decades
to complete. Shell started conducting
research on FT processes in 1973 at
its labs in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The
company first focused on coal-to-liquids
conversion but later switched to natural
Within
gas as the primary feedstock.245
these tests, the company was able to create
new catalysts to produce a few grams/d of
hydrocarbon liquids from natural gas. By
1983, production increased to a few bpd at
Shell's pilot plant facility in Amsterdam.246
Less than a decade later, Shell opened
the Bintulu GTL facility. The $850-MM,
12,500-bpd plant utilized Shell's Middle
Distillate Synthesis (MDS) process. According
to literature,247
is comprised of three basic stages. These
stages include:
* Stage 1: The production of syngas
from the partial oxidation process
of natural gas with pure oxygen via
Shell's Gasification Process.
* Stage 2: The syngas passes
through paraffin synthesis reactors
equipped with proprietary Shell
catalyst. These catalyst and reactors
favor the formation of longchained
liquid molecules (wax),
simultaneously minimizing the
formation of gaseous compounds.
* Stage 3: The intermediate and
waxy synthetic crude oil molecules
are converted and fractionated
into high-quality products.
The waxes are purified via a
hydrogenation unit followed by
advanced fractionation. Clean
middle distillates and waxy
108 AUGUST 2022 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
the MDS process
raffinate are produced by a
selective hydrocracking process
(i.e., heavy paraffin conversion),
followed by distillation.
The Bintulu GTL plant was later expanded
to 14,700 bpd in the mid-2000s.
Several years later, Shell and Qatar Petroleum
commissioned the largest commercial
GTL plant in the world, the $18-B,
140,000-bpd Pearl GTL complex in Ras
Laffan Industrial City, Qatar (FIG. 1).
The fieldbus wars lead to a new
standard in process automation. In
the mid-1970s, the introduction of the
distributed control system (DCS) by
Honeywell and Yokogawa revolutionized
process automation in the refining and
petrochemical industries (the history of
the DCS is detailed in the 1970s history
section). This advancement in automation
led to several new technologies to
optimize plant operations, including the
creation of fieldbus.
According to literature, fieldbus is the
technology that provides a digital link
between intelligent, microprocessorbased
field instrumentation and the host
DCS.248
Prior to fieldbus, field instruments
had to be wired in a point-to-point
configuration; fieldbus enabled these instruments
to communicate with the DCS
using a single wire.
The origins of fieldbus technology
date to the mid-1970s with the creation
of the general-purpose interface bus, a
precursor to Intel Corp.'s Bitbus in the
early 1980s. Throughout the 1980s,
several companies developed fieldbus
competing standards in Europe (e.g., the
French FIP vs. the German PROFIBUS,
which the two later tried to combine) in
the late 1980s/early 1990s and within
the U.S. in the mid-1990s.249
In 1999, the leading fieldbus manufacturers
at the time-ControlNet,
Fieldbus Foundation [developed by the
International Society of Automation
(ISA) and purchased by the FieldComm
Group in 2015], Fisher Rosemount
(now part of Emerson), the PROFIBUS
user organization, Rockwell Automation
and Siemens-signed an agreement
that put an end to the fieldbus wars.249
This agreement became the basis for
the International Electrotechnical Commission's
(IEC's) IEC 61158 standard.
According to literature, the IEC 61158
standard grouped the different fieldbuses
into types, but created common
physical, data link and application layers.248
The
standard enabled competing
technologies to work with each other.
Fieldbus is still in use today; however, it
is being challenged by industrial Ethernet,
a technology that has gained prominence
since the 2010s.
LITERATURE CITED
222
223
Staff editors, " 1999 HPI Market Data, " Hydrocarbon
Processing, 1999.
Lowe, D., " The Nobel price that got binned, "
Chemistry World, October 12, 2020, online:
https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/thenobel-prize-that-got-binned/4012568.article
224
225
Wikipedia,
" Metallocene, " online: https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallocene#History
Bhagat, S., " Past and future perspective of metallocene
catalyst: A review, " European Journal of
Molecular and Clinical Medicine, " 2020, online:
https://ejmcm.com/pdf_3246_7618147a47a174
bbbae78af1ef473bb9.html
Complete literature cited available online at
www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com

https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/thenobel-prize-that-got-binned/4012568.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/thenobel-prize-that-got-binned/4012568.article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallocene#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallocene#History https://ejmcm.com/pdf_3246_7618147a47a174bbbae78af1ef473bb9.html https://ejmcm.com/pdf_3246_7618147a47a174bbbae78af1ef473bb9.html http://www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com http://www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com

Hydrocarbon Processing - September 2022

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