Hydrocarbon Processing - June 2022 - 53

100th Anniversary
History of the HPI
LEE NICHOLS, Editor-in-Chief/Associate Publisher
The 1970s: Crises, clean air, plastic bottles
and the DCS
The 1970s were marked by several historical
events that affected not only the
hydrocarbon processing industry (HPI)
but nations around the world. The decade
witnessed two oil crises that would
disrupt the global supply of oil and increase
prices substantially. New regulations
by the U.S. and Europe ushered in
an era of clean fuels standards that are
still in transition today. Novel technologies
introduced in the 1970s revolutionized
emissions reduction from vehicles'
tailpipes, advanced process controls and
automation, and changed the way society
drinks carbonated beverages.
The decade also witnessed advances in
catalytic processing technologies, such as
the commercialization of catalytic dewaxing,
wax hydroisomerization and continuous
catalytic reforming (CCR).135
For example,
Mobil developed the first catalytic
dewaxing process in the mid-1970s. The
technology-referred to as the MDDW
process-utilized the company's Zeolite
Socony Mobil-5 (ZSM-5) catalyst to increase
the cold flow properties of diesel
(the invention of the ZSM-5 catalyst was
detailed in the History of the HPI section
in the May issue).136
In 1971, UOP began
operations on the first CCR Platforming
unit at the Coastal States refinery in
Corpus Christi, Texas (U.S.). According
to literature, the CCR section enabled
refiners to continuously remove coke accumulating
on the catalyst. This allowed
lower reforming reaction pressures to
increase reformate and hydrogen yields,
higher reaction temperatures to achieve
higher octane levels for gasoline blending-thus
enabling lead-free gasoline-
and increased production of aromatics for
use as petrochemical feedstocks.137
Two crises stress the importance
for energy security. The 1970s were
rocked by two global crises: The oil embargo
of 1973 and the oil crisis of 1979.
These two events had detrimental effects
on oil importing nations around the
world, as well as stressed the importance
of energy security.
Oil embargo of 1973. The first oil
crisis to affect the global economy in the
1970s was the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries' (OPEC's) oil
embargo in 1973-1974-the creation
of OPEC was detailed in the History of
the HPI section in the May issue of Hydrocarbon
Processing. The embargo was
a retaliation against countries that supported
Israel during the Yom Kippur War
with Syria (i.e., the U.S., Canada, Japan,
and a few African and Western European
nations).138
It banned petroleum exports
to targeted countries and incorporated
crude oil production cuts, leading to a
quadrupling of oil prices-oil prices increased
from $3/bbl to nearly $12/bbl by
early 1974, an increase of 300%.139
The embargo had detrimental
effects
on nations that were dependent on
foreign oil to satisfy domestic demand.
Many nations enacted oil rationing programs,
as well as banning fuels usage (e.g.,
driving, flying) on various days. The high
price of oil even led several countries to
the brink of recession and proved that oil
could be used as an economic weapon.139
In March 1974, peace talks between Israel
and Syria led to the eventual lifting of
the oil embargo. However, this would not
be the last time within this decade that
the world would be caught in a global oil
price crisis.
Oil crisis of 1979. The second crisis
that significantly affected global oil prices
in the 1970s was due to the Iranian Revolution.
The revolution, which began in
early 1978 and ended a year later, led to
the toppling of the country's leader, Shah
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and installed
Sheikh Khomeini as grand ayatollah. The
year-long revolution was responsible for
knocking approximately 4.8 MMbpd
of oil production offline. Although this
represented only 7% of the world's oil
production at the time, it led to global oil
prices nearly doubling to $39/bbl.140
In a little more than 6 yr removed from
the oil embargo crisis, history began to
repeat
itself. Several countries rationed
supplies, governments invested billions of
dollars in research to find an alternative to
oil, and many countries either switched or
began to explore switching domestic power
generation from oil to other feedstocks,
such as coal, natural gas or nuclear.140
Both the 1973 oil embargo and 1979
oil crisis had dramatic effects on the global
marketplace. However, the underlying
theme of these global events brought to
light the necessity for energy security, a
concept that continues today.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 ushers in
a new era of environmental awareness/action.
As countries modernized
and produced fuels and products for
domestic and international markets, a
lingering challenge could be felt by local
populations: air pollution. Not only did
manufacturing plants, refineries, chemical
and petrochemicals facilities, factories
and other industrial operations produce
air pollutants, gasoline burned in internal
combustion engines (i.e., automobiles)
filled the skies with pollutants such as hydrocarbons,
carbon monoxide and nitrogen
oxides.
In efforts to reduce air pollution, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) initiated a series of laws and amendments
to various industries. The first federal
legislation passed to address air pollution
in the U.S. was the Air Pollution
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