Gas chemistry products on the trend for refining
Metafrax Group's delegation presented promising technologies for the use of paraformaldehyde and urea in modern oil refining.
The conference "Russian and CIS Leaders: Refining and Petrochemicals 2023" was held in Moscow on 21-22 March with the support of industry leaders. Representatives of leading oil and gas companies, government authorities, design institutes, suppliers of goods and equipment, technology and services participated in the discussion. The main topics of the discussions included the search for new ways to develop the industry, as well as promising technologies that allow to solve substitution issues in refining and petrochemical processing.
At the session dedicated to low-tonnage chemistry, Evgeny Gavrilov, Deputy Director for Strategy and Investment of Metafrax Group, made a presentation on "Gas Chemistry Products in Oil Refining Today: paraformaldehyde as a hydrogen sulphide absorber and urea in exhaust gas purification". The speaker highlighted the relevance of paraformaldehyde application in oil production and refining.
The same can be said about AdBlue technology, i.e. the purification of exhaust gases with urea. We produce and supply to the market both products: urea and paraformaldehyde. Besides, we shared our vision in developing of low-tonnage chemistry. Which ways of partnership development we consider promising, which cluster projects are possible in this direction.
Technical aspects of using paraformaldehyde and urea were also discussed by our colleagues on the sidelines of the conference. The Metafrax Group's view on the prospects of the proposed technologies was presented by Vasily Perepelkin, head of the separate subdivision of ETС Metafrax. According to him, the participants of the conference are interested in the peculiarities of paraformaldehyde application in the world practice.
Here, first of all, we are talking about two directions. This is production in small and medium-tonnage chemistry, where it is required to exclude water in the technological process. The second area is production at remote sites, where formalin supply is very difficult.
The ETC Metafrax representative highlighted that Russia is actively searching for formalin alternatives.
There are three main segments. The first is protection of plants. Several projects for the glyphosate production have been announced in Russia. The second segment is special resins, in particular, for metalworking. This is a hot topic at the moment due to import substitution. The third segment is hydrogen sulphide absorbers. Consumers try to switch over to more effective hydrogen sulphide absorbers. And here we can offer paraformaldehyde as the most convenient alternative to formaldehyde. We receive quite a lot of requests. At the Chemistry conference, for example, we were approached with four different products, and today we have already been approached with one product.
Heads and leading specialists of Gazpromneft, Qualitet, Strong, Rezel, Stim, TEK-Engineering, Technique, Chemico and other companies took part in the discussion of new trends in the petrochemical and refining market.