ERTC 18th Annual Meeting Call for papers
ERTC 18th Annual Meeting call for Papers Deadline:
Friday, 5th April 2013
Please email your abstracts to vicki.pope@gtforum.com
ERTC 18th Annual Meeting
Tuesday 19th - Thursday 21st November 2013
Budapest
Global Technology Forum are excited to be bringing the ERTC 18th Annual Meeting to Budapest in 2013, the first time the event has taken place in this wonderful city. The ERTC Annual Meeting has long been the premier event of the year for the international oil refining industry with over 500 professionals attending from every international region. The conference provides the ideal opportunity to networking with industry peers, customers and colleagues and imparts knowledge of refinery best practices and case studies as well as the latest in process and technology advancement. This year's ERTC 18th Annual Meeting will be held in Budapest from Tuesday 19th - Thursday 21st November 2013.
Global Technology Forum has as usual commissioned an advisory board, comprising of industry experts from refining companies to make the paper selections for the conference. You are now invited to submit one or two original papers for this conference for acceptance by the advisory board. Acceptance criteria will be originality and technical innovation. At this stage, the only requirements are a working title, subject area and brief description of the proposed content (typically a 200 word abstract).
Preference will be given to papers giving case histories and actual operating experience. We would be pleased to receive abstracts from supply companies that are co-authored with operating companies. Some hot topics for the conference programme are as follows but not restricted to:
Market
• What does the future hold for European refining?
• A world view on energy including gas, coal, nuclear as well as oil
• Feedstocks of the future, crudes and alternatives
• Feedstock-refining-petrochemical integration strategies for European operators, maximise the value of some intermediate semi product
• ULSD mid distillates experiences
• Shale gas influence - where will the gas/LNG prices settle in Europe?
• The effect of Shale Oil and Shale Gas on US refining industry and the impact on European refining with less import demand from US
• Market related drivers beyond traditional transport and energy i.e. Petrochemicals
• Future of bunker fuels
• Will governments consider some support for refineries such as a tax break?
• The balance of gasoline and diesel in the EU market; addressing oversupply issues
• Economic crisis, reduction in fuels consumption
• Low capex solutions to combat low margins
• Product quality required of fuels and lubricants of the future; trends for future engine technologies, the resulting requirement for the gasoline and diesel qualities and the impacts on refineries
• How to face changing demand scenarios, low cost modifications enhancing production flexibility
• Investment case studies
o Investment is necessary but not attractive, can anyone afford to invest?
o Will banks lend to the Refining industry?
o Will governments provide guarantees?
o Will majors ever return to refining in Europe with investment compared to upstream ROI
Regulation
• New Russian tax policy and its impact on European refining
• Impact legislation for refining business: CCS, BREF, IED, FQD, RED, ETS Phase III
• Carbon tax
• Future for regulations on atmospheric emissions in EU
• Environmental issues (LCP, REACH, introducing BATs' - reduction of all emissions: gas, liquid, solid)
• Potential impacts of legislation - the effects on demand
• MARPOL regulations, the impact of the IMO and the outlook for bunker fuels
• Environmental legislation - emissions trading
Emissions
• Energy efficiency improvement and consumption reductions solutions and case histories
• Assessing carbon footprint - where we are? What is affecting refinery emissions?
• CO2 capture and storage
• Key elements for improving energy performance- examples
• Energy saving potentials, alternative solutions, with and without capex
• Optimisation of utilities' consumption
• Reducing FCC NOx emissions, reducing CO2 - designs for better CO2 capture
• Energy saving - CO2 and NOx development
Biofuels and renewable energy
• Renewables, their fundamental numbers, costs, benefits, efficiency improvements and actual car performance data.
• Opportunities for clean fuels
• Development in biofuels and alternative fuels (directives, sustainability, goals-realistic or not, market acceptance)
• Renewable energy sources, their potential and the current pace of development
• Biofuels and the impact of EU legislation
• Non edible oils processing, co-processing, pyrolysis
• Energy optimisation: reliable cost effective sources of green energy
• 2nd generation fuels and sustainability
• Feedstock availability and developments of new feedstocks.
• Advances in biofuels co processing at conventional refinery units (HDS, FCC).
Petrochemicals
• Refinery/Petchem integration - How to improve profitability and boost yields
• Future developments in Petrochemicals
• Gasoline to petrochemicals - how to convert naphtha and light to petrochemicals instead of gasoline
• Engineering solutions for petrochemical plants problems
Processes and technologies
• High throughput screening of naphtha reforming and more details about inter-regional zones exchanges
• Challenged crudes processing
• Hydrogen production and management
• Technical and economic analysis of residue upgrading options
• Heavy oil upgrading technology and economics
• Energy efficiency technologies
• Hydroprocessing catalysts
• Gas to liquid technologies to maximise opportunities from the fuel gas market and the low prices
• Wastewater treatment connected to refineries
• Gasification or Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC)
• Hydrocracking and diesel HDS catalyst strategies
• Gasification, multifeed gasification including coal, biomass, petcoke, residue etc.
• LNG to product
• Technologies improving conversion capabilities
• Refinery technologies for sulphur reduction in bunker fuel
• High ROI technologies
Maintenance, safety and reliability
• HSE aspects of refinery operations
• Alarm management
• Troubleshooting case studies
• Alternative use of existing units or equipment. New units from old ones with minimum new equipment (investments).
• Refinery revamp
• "Pressure Drop" and how it can corrected in refineries
• Process safety - holistic solutions and guidelines
• Lifecycle strategy for ageing plants, activities and spend profile
• Efficient tools for maintenance programmes
• How to optimise existing assets, technologies improving assets optimisation and management
• How to improve maintenance efficiency and quality and plant reliability
• Refinery reconfiguration
Important notice: Please note that supplier speakers are subject to the registration fees as outlined by Global Technology Forum.
In order to meet the conference-planning timetable and to ensure submission to the advisory board, please respond by Friday 5th April 2013 and send your abstracts to vicki.pope@gtforum.com
