Becht 2022 Year In Review

This past year was notable for geopolitical events and higher margins.  It was great for us to once again be able to meet with our clients, and our colleagues, in person.  Throughout the year, Becht continued to work on ways to bring higher value to our clients.

Some of the areas our clients found this value include:

• Becht’s industry-leading Joint Industry Project (JIP) on High Temperature Hydrogen Attack (HTHA) is unique in integrating an advanced, extensively validated damage model with all levels of inspection to provide a safe and practical solution to quantify cumulative damage and remaining life prediction.  Our program delivers actual fitness-for-service of damaged equipment to allow safe replacement timing.

• Our holistic approach to Energy Optimization helped generate CO₂ emission reductions, indicative capital cost estimates, and initial project risk assessments to support a corporate strategy review session The Process, Fired Heaters and Strategic Business Planning groups will continue to expand this offering and toolkit in 2023, leveraging our collective experience in energy.

• In 2022, Becht supported multiple clients with Energy Transition Projects; evaluating brownfield revamps, repurposing of existing assets, and greenfield facilities for processing renewable feedstock to produce renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel blendstock. Through our broad bench of experts, we are able to provide a pathway to meet overall targets and provide insights into the economics and carbon incentives that will be required to achieve the Scope 1, 2, and 3 reduction targets.

• In-person training is back! With the integration of RPS, Becht tripled the number of Training Courses offered both publicly and privately, especially in the areas of process technology. Becht held its first large-scale in-person public training (5-week session) in Houston, TX. Plans will continue into next year with several training blocks back in Houston, and potential public in-person growth in Europe.

• Becht has made wireless health monitoring a reality at multiple sites. We are now providing breakthroughs in Wireless Coke Drum Monitoring while reducing total cost and expanding system analysis and scalability flexibility. Our web-based coke drum HMS software takes data and makes it truly usable.

• Ammonia/syngas networks started in Asia and Americas, EMEA to come! The nitrogen, ammonia, hydrogen, urea, and syngas industries are vital to the production of various petrochemical products for worldwide consumption. Becht hosts networking events quarterly to bring industry members together to discuss lessons learned about these complex process plants and share the knowledge to help each other bring the final product to market.

• The steam methane reformer is a critical and often problematic asset. Becht has worked with numerous syngas owners to investigate their on-stream failures and found that most failures could have been prevented through the application of Becht’s SMR Gap Analysis assessment which establishes the shortcomings in critical design and construction, process and inspection controls.

• In 2022, Becht developed the Stream Compatibility model that allows for blending different streams (crudes, atmospheric bottoms, vacuum bottoms, FCC slurry, etc) to evaluate the potential compatibility risk of the resultant mixture. The model relies on six different factors to generate overall prediction and gives the user a view of the overall risk profile.

• This year Becht doubled the BechtCONNECT client base, while developing enhanced client features such as manager approval, request KPIs, global search and an expanded Knowledge Library. Based on client feedback, we are now offering discounts on our training courses by pairing the TSA | BechtCONNECT offering with a routine training program.

• Becht Industrial Group (BIG) is a mechanical contractor specializing in turnarounds, major maintenance activities and other schedule driven projects with the sole purpose of “helping our partners win”.  BIG’s experienced Executive Team is committed to Safety, Quality and Performance, and has developed strong relationships with other Strategic Partners.

• Fitness-for-Service tool was incorporated into the DNV platform. The DNV Synergi Plant software for integrity management and maintenance of petrochemical plants, refineries, and processing plant, is integrating our state-of-the-art FFS solution after an agreement between DNV and Becht. The FFS tool helps plant operators determine if equipment is safe for continuous service or serve as a guideline to make critical run-replacement-repair decisions.

• IR Borescope technology was originally developed for olefin heaters and is now updated for lower temperature applications present in most refineries.  Heaters with poor viewport installations can be fully observed while online, aiding in detection of abnormal operations and hot spots without cutting in new viewports.

• The Goldcup contact pyrometer is the most accurate online temperature measurement ever developed as it creates a black body cavity on the tube with the heater online. Becht’s new generation will have modular configurations to allow application to many more heater styles (vertical cylindrical and cabin heaters) to bring the high accuracy capability to many more common heater designs.

• In addition to assisting plants with traditional Project Management Consulting, Becht is assisting Low Carbon and Alternative Fuels Mega Projects with Production Assurance expertise (from FEL 0 through startup) to provide greater reliability of safe, stable and sustainable production at start-up and throughout the life of the asset.

• CorrExpert-Crude was extended to function as a framework for continuous blend and assay corrosion evaluation and quantification.  Further, with the system’s ability to track protective sulfidic barrier layer from utilization of higher sulfur crude blends, case studies are being conducted to showcase how operators can take advantage of time dependent barrier layer growth and consumption by naphthenic acid corrosion as a way to optimize processing a diverse group of crude baskets.

We look forward to continuing to service our clients in 2023 and we welcome your challenges!