[en] The potential for optoelectronic sensor technology to provide the monitoring and control systems required for advanced subsea hydrocarbon production management is described. The utilisation of optoelectronic sensor technology to produce a new class of subsea Christmas Tree with in-built enhanced production monitoring and control systems as well as effective environmental monitoring systems is reported

[en] This paper examines the nonlinear or asymmetric relationship between oil revenues and output growth in oil-exporting countries, applying a dynamic panel framework and two different measures of oil shocks. The main results in this paper confirm the stylized facts that in heavily oil-dependent countries lacking the institutional mechanisms de-linking fiscal expenditure from current revenue, oil revenue shocks tend to affect the output in asymmetric and nonlinear ways. The findings suggest that output growth is adversely affected by the negative oil shocks, while oil booms or the positive oil shocks play a limited role in stimulating economic growth. The findings have practical policy implications for decision makers in the area of macroeconomic planning. The use of stabilization and savings funds and diversification of the real sector seems crucial to minimize the harmful effects of oil booms and busts. (author)

[en] One approach to detect signs of potential machine failure is to detect wear debris in the lubrication oil of a rotating or reciprocating machine because the size and the concentration of wear debris particles in the oil show a direct relationship with the level of wear. In this article, a proof-of-principle integrated wear debris sensor consisting of an ultrasonic pulse sensor and an inductive pulse sensor for detecting wear debris in lubrication oil is presented. The ultrasonic pulse sensor detects all solid debris (metallic and non-metallic debris). A flow recess structure is utilized to ensure that all wear debris passes the acoustic focal region so that all debris can be accurately counted and sized. The inductive pulse sensor detects and counts all metallic debris (ferrous and non-ferrous) based on the inductive Coulter counting principle. By comparing the results from the two sensing components, the sensor is capable of differentiating and detecting non-metallic debris, ferrous metallic debris and non-ferrous metallic debris. (paper)

[en] Shell and Tube type Oil Cooler is widely used for hydraulic presses, die casting machines, generation equipments, machine tools and construction heavy machinery. Temperature of oil in the hydraulic system changes viscosity and thickness of oil film. They have a bad effect to performance and lubrication of hydraulic machinery, so it is important to know exactly the heat exchanging efficiency of oil cooler for controlling oil temperature. But most Korean manufacturers do not have test equipment for oil cooler, so they cannot carry out the efficiency test of oil cooler and it is impossible to verify its performance. This paper includes information of construction of necessary utilities for oil cooler test and design and manufacture of test equipment. One can select the optimum product by obtaining performance data through tests of various kinds of oil coolers. And also the paper developed a program which can be easily used for design of 2D and 3D drawings of oil cooler

[en] Power consumption in the oil mixing process is very much affected by the impeller design. Minor modification on the impeller design might result in better mixing and less energy consumption. This paper reports an early stage of applying the observation technique to modify three standard impellers, namely the Pitched blade turbine impeller, the CHEMSHEAR impeller and the Vertical Flat-Blade Turbine Impeller. The advantages and disadvantages of these three impellers were analyzed; accordingly minor modification on the impeller design is adopted. The CFD tool is used to evaluate one of the modified impellers; results indicated that the modified impeller achieves better fluid dispersion.

[en] This study examines the growth, conservation, neutrality and feedback hypotheses for 49 countries during the period from 1970 to 2010 using panel causality analysis: this technique accounts for both dependence and heterogeneity across the countries. The results provide evidence as to the direction of causality between oil consumption and output and are consistent with the neutrality hypothesis for 24 countries, the growth hypothesis for 5 countries, the conservation hypothesis for 13 countries, and the feedback hypothesis for 7 countries. The findings provide important policy implications for the 49 countries under study. - Highlights: ► Bootstrap panel causality for 49 countries. ► Examines the “growth, conservation, neutrality and feedback” hypotheses for 49 countries during the period from 1970 to 2010.

[en] A method is described for forming thin free-standing oil films which are spun from the edge of a sharp-edged rotating disc. The films can be made thin enough to show strong optical interference colors when viewed in white light. The thinnest films have areal densities down to about 10-20 μg/cm². A stable roughly triangular film with an area of about 10 cm² and fairly uniform thickness can be readily produced. Much larger films having either greater thickness or less stability are also possible. Films have been produced both in air and in vacuum. (orig.)

[en] The correlation between the coma sensitivity of the alternating phase-shifting mask (Alt-PSM) mark and the mark's structure is studied based on the Hopkins theory of partially coherent imaging and positive resist optical lithography (PROLITH) simulation. It is found that an optimized Alt-PSM mark with its phase width being two-thirds its pitch has a higher sensitivity to coma than Alt-PSM marks with the same pitch and the different phase widths. The pitch of the Alt-PSM mark is also optimized by PROLITH simulation, and the structure of p=1.92λ/NA and pw=2p/3 proves to be with the highest sensitivity. The optimized Alt-PSM mark is used as a measurement mark to retrieve coma aberration from the projection optics in lithographic tools. In comparison with an ordinary Alt-PSM mark with its phase width being a half its pitch, the measurement accuracies of Z7 and Z14 apparently increase

[en] Investigations of major accidents show that technical, human, operational, as well as organisational factors influence the accident sequences. In spite of these facts, quantitative risk analyses of offshore oil and gas production platforms have focused on technical safety systems. This paper presents a method (called BORA-Release) for qualitative and quantitative risk analysis of the platform specific hydrocarbon release frequency. By using BORA-Release it is possible to analyse the effect of safety barriers introduced to prevent hydrocarbon releases, and how platform specific conditions of technical, human, operational, and organisational risk influencing factors influence the barrier performance. BORA-Release comprises the following main steps: (1) development of a basic risk model including release scenarios, (2) modelling the performance of safety barriers, (3) assignment of industry average probabilities/frequencies and risk quantification based on these probabilities/frequencies, (4) development of risk influence diagrams, (5) scoring of risk influencing factors, (6) weighting of risk influencing factors, (7) adjustment of industry average probabilities/frequencies, and (8) recalculation of the risk in order to determine the platform specific risk related to hydrocarbon release. The various steps in BORA-Release are presented and discussed. Part II of the paper presents results from a case study where BORA-Release is applied

[en] Despite the oil industry's efforts in improving safety, it still presents a high rate of serious accidents, many involving human failure events (HFE), which can be identified, modelled, and quantified through human reliability analysis (HRA). The oil industry commonly analyzes process safety by focusing on technical barriers, and thus it could benefit from HRA. Phoenix methodology is an HRA method that uses a human response model and relates the crew failures modes (CFM) to performance influencing factors (PIFs). Based on Phoenix CFMs and PIFs, two refinery accidents, the BP Texas City (2005) and the Chevron Richmond (2012), are analyzed in this paper. The analysis consists of the construction of the accident timeline; identification of the HFEs and assigning them to appropriate CFMs; and, finally analysis of the PIFs. The analysis helped better understand how the operators responded to an abnormal condition of the process, and why they took the actions they did, investigating the contribution of human error to the accidents. The assessment of the role human error played in these accidents is a major contribution to the understanding of why they happened, and a key information to avoid the same happening again in the future. Moreover, the features and limitations of the application of Phoenix HRA, which was developed based mainly on nuclear power plant operations, to Oil Refinery operation scenarios, are discussed and evaluated. This article provides insights on value of investigating the potential impact of human error in the Petroleum Industry accidents. (author)