Pittsburgh-area site is chosen for major refinery

Shell Oil Co. has chosen a site near Pittsburgh for a major, multi-billion-dollar petrochemical refinery that could create thousands of construction jobs and provide a huge economic boost to the region. Dan Carlson, Shell’s General Manager of New Business Development, said Thursday that the company signed a land option agreement with Horsehead Corp. to evaluate [...]

TransCanada to Build Texas Segment of Keystone XL Pipeline

TransCanada Corp. will proceed with building a $2.3 billion segment of its Keystone XL oil pipeline from Oklahoma to the Texas coast so that it isn’t delayed by U.S. approval for the rest of the line. The company, based in Calgary, expects the segment to begin carrying crude from the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub to [...]

MATCOR’s SPL Linear Anode Proves Ideal for Retrofit Project

Arkema is a world class producer of industrial chemicals, but its King of Prussia, PA Research and Development facility looks more like a college campus building than your typical industrial facility.  And yet, like any industrial facility, the site has buried utility piping that is subject to external corrosion.   When the facility experienced steam [...]

Oil spill brings calls for scrutiny of small lines

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A northwestern Montana oil spill that went unreported for a month has led to calls for increased scrutiny over the thousands of small flow pipelines within the nation’s oil and gas fields. Flow lines are completely contained within the fields and pipe unprocessed oil, gas and water from wells to holding tanks [...]

Cathodic Protection – An Essential Requirement for Power Plant Asset Management

Recently, MATCOR’s Ted Huck visited a power plant built in the 1970’s. Huck commented, “I was pleased to find out that there was a coating and cathodic protection (CP) system protecting the plant’s gas pipeline.” He continued, “I was dismayed to find out that no commissioning report was available, and the plant’s maintenance files lacked [...]

Tesoro Maintenance at Fault in Refinery Blast, U.S. Says

Tesoro Corp. (TSO) didn’t adequately maintain equipment at its Anacortes, Washington, refinery prior to an explosion that killed seven workers last April, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said. According to its preliminary findings, hydrogen corrosion caused microscopic cracks in the walls of a heat exchanger in the plant, board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso said [...]