DOHA: Qatar Fuel Additives Company (QAFAC) and UOP, A Honeywell Company are co-hosting the UOP Oleflex Users' Conference 2010 at Sharq Village, Doha from November 1-4, 2010, the first time that such an event has been held in the Middle East.
The objective of the conference is to openly interchange information by sharing knowledge, experience and skills among the participants from 10 countries around the world including USA, UK, Russia, Spain, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Oleflex process technology is licensed worldwide by UOP, Des Plaines, Illinois, USA. The process produces olefins via selective dehydrogenation of alkaynes in the moving bed catalytic reactors to convert isobutane (C4) to isobutylene or propane (C3) to propylene.
Currently, there are 16 operating Oleflex licensees (users) worldwide including 10 licensees for C3 to isobutylene, five licenses for C4 to propylene and one mixed-feed license. The end products for the C4 Oleflex plants are either MTBE or iso-octane, which are used as additives in gasoline to increase octane. The products from the C3 plants are polypropylene or propylene derivatives, which are primarily used in the polymer industry. The QAFAC site produces MTBE via dehydrogenation of iso-butane using UOP Oleflex process technology.
QAFAC General Manager, Rashid Misfer Al-Hajri will deliver the keynote address followed by the UOP keynote speech by Keith Aspray, General Manager of UOP. Over the four days there will be 19 technical papers from speakers of various organizations, focusing mainly on the Oleflex technological issues.
Some of the key topics will be design improvements, turnaround best practices, improved catalysts, reactor design and best operating practices.
© The Peninsula 2010
