Solomon Update
Subscribe to this page.Solomon Associates’ Joe Barth Leads Two-Day Refinery Economics Seminar in Luxembourg
Senior consultant Joe Barth will be conducting a two-day Refinery Economics Seminar to help operators maximize profitability at Haverly Systems’ MUGI 2012 European Conference, March 29-30, in Luxembourg. Barth will cover the economic and optimization skills needed to improve refinery/petrochemical profits, providing hands-on examples that demonstrate Solomon’s unique approach to the complexities of marginal [...]
Top Energy Facilities Achieve Never-Before-Seen Levels of Mechanical Availability
Al Poling, Solomon Associates’ project manager for the International Study of Plant Reliability and Maintenance Effectiveness, or RAM Study, continues to reveal new global standards in manufacturing performance at the MARCON 2012 conference, Feb. 27 through March 1, in Knoxville, Tenn. Poling will present “The Reliability Imperative: Lessons Learned from Reliability and Maintenance Benchmarking” at [...]
Solomon Associates’ President Dale Emanuel Featured in Two Media Outlets for His Views on the Oil & Gas Industry
Dale Emanuel, president of Solomon Associates, recently was featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper and Inc. magazine’s Business Bytes technology blog for his oil industry expertise. The Inc. blog highlighted the oil and gas industry’s ability to operate dependably and without interruption. In a post entitled “365 Days a Year, the Oil & Gas [...]
Solomon Associates Congratulates Inventors of Company’s Patented Benchmarking Methodology and Winner of NPRA Lifetime Service Award
Solomon Associates is pleased to recognize those recently awarded a patent for the company’s “Control Asset Comparative Performance Analysis System and Methodology,” a unique benchmarking process used to assess the effectiveness of plant control systems intended to maximize profits and improve safety. John Havener, Solomon’s net cash margin performance improvement senior consultant, leads a [...]
Solomon Associates’ Al Poling Presents New Global Standards of Performance at the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals Annual Conference
Solomon Associates’ Al Poling last week presented “Reliability and Maintenance Benchmarking: New Standards of Performance in a Global Marketplace” at the 2011 Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals Annual Conference in Greensboro, N.C. As the project manager for Solomon’s International Study of Plant Reliability and Maintenance Effectiveness, or RAM Study, Poling spoke to industry [...]
Solomon Associates Announces Studies Designed to Improve Olefin and Butadiene Producer Performance
Solomon Associates recently announced it has begun solicitation for its 2011 Worldwide Olefin Plant Performance Analysis (Olefin Study) and 2011 Worldwide Butadiene Plant Performance Analysis (Butadiene Study). The studies enable chemical manufacturers to identify performance issues and improve manufacturing processes. The Olefin Study uses a proprietary gap analysis to identify millions of dollars [...]
Solomon Associates Teams With New Agents in the Middle East and South Korea to Expand Services to Energy Companies Around the Globe
Solomon Associates recently announced partnerships with two firms to offer Solomon’s benchmarking and consulting services in the Middle East and South Korea. Reza Investment Company Ltd., based in Saudi Arabia, is Solomon’s partner in the Middle East. In Korea, Solomon is teaming with N-PlusEnter, a Seoul-based agent serving the energy sector, to assist South [...]
Helping Study Participants Ease the Data-Gathering Process
Solomon Associates’ enhanced data gathering and performance-monitoring services are now available for participants in its industry-leading comparative studies of refineries, chemical plants, gas plants, pipeline and terminal operations, and power plants. Solomon Associates’ Data Collection Automation service enables study participants to spend less time collecting data. During this on-premises service, Solomon Associates identifies the [...]
Solomon Associates Launches NGPP, RAM, APC, and Automation Studies
Solomon Associates recently embarked on the following studies to help improve industrial facility operations worldwide: The 2011 Worldwide Natural Gas Processing Plant Performance Analysis (Gas Plant Study) serves as a comparative analysis that assesses all aspects of participating plants’ operations, compares their performance to peer data, and then identifies areas for improvement. Solomon Associates gathers [...]
Power Plant Operators to Convene at Solomon Associates Events in Singapore, Cologne
Solomon Associates will lead a pair of educational events in June 2011 for power generation companies interested in improving the operating performance of their existing facilities. The first event will take place June 6 at the Park Hotel at Clarke Quay in Singapore. The seminar will cover the data and tools required to maximize the operating [...]
Investors Should Do Their Homework Before Acquiring Energy Assets
Many say we’re in a buyer’s market for energy assets. Oil companies are selling more refineries than at any time in history, often for much less than their purchase prices just a few years ago. Meanwhile, power generation and renewable energy are attracting interest from a wide range of investors. But when is the best [...]
Solomon Associates Promotes Trout, Brown, and Wright
Solomon Associates recently announced the promotions of three key executives: • Bill Trout was named vice president of refining studies. Trout will lead the company’s definitive benchmarking studies for refiners, including the Worldwide Fuels Refinery Performance Analysis (Fuels Study) and the Worldwide Paraffinic Lube Refinery Performance Analysis (Lube Study), as well as specialty studies and [...]
Solomon Associates experts ask: How long will coal remain king?
In Solomon Associates’ 2011 industry trends forecast for Power Magazine, Anthony J. Carrino and Richard B. Jones continue to track the decline of coal-fired power generation in the face of European carbon trading. While the United States may not have a carbon market, the authors also show that increasing regulatory requirements are creating a similar [...]
Solomon Associates featured in FUEL Magazine
Solomon Associates was the subject of an article, “Solomon: Performance Partner,” in the December 2010 issue of FUEL Magazine. An excerpt: Energy industry executives routinely cite their position using industry “quartile ranking” statistics. If that executive works for a refiner, those statistics are almost certainly the “Solomon” rankings and indices developed by HSB Solomon Associates [...]
Power generation team looks to improve costs and increase plant reliability
With the launch of the 2010 Worldwide Power Generation Performance Analysis (Power Study), Solomon hopes to help power generators to identify performance gaps as a basis for improving reliability and operational cost allocations. “The economic downturn combined with perceived and actual changes in regulatory direction around the globe have caused an evolution in the [...]
2010 Worldwide Liquid Terminals Performance Analysis Launches
The 2010 Terminals Study, designed to enable terminal operators to identify performance gaps as a basis for improving reliability and operational cost allocations, launches this month. “More than 90 terminals entrust Solomon Associates with their most sensitive operational data, which the company uses to develop proprietary, confidential comparative analyses to help study participants accurately analyze [...]
Power generation in U.S. has potential to follow the utilization patterns of Europe
With the entry of large amounts of wind energy and the emergence of a U.S. carbon market, Solomon’s Power Generation team thinks this might cause U.S. fossil plant utilization to follow the utilization patterns seen in Europe. The team believes there is an affirmation in current data of what has to date only been speculated [...]
Solomon Develops Tool to Identify Energy Reduction Opportunities
Solomon’s new Energy Diagnostic tool is designed to assist with identifying energy performance improvement opportunities in electric power and fuel consumption, as well as steam system utilization, based on the most efficient energy performers in Solomon’s extensive database. In addition to analyzing crude unit preheat exchanger trains and comparing them to the best performing units [...]
Solomon President Dale Emanuel to Speak at JPI Conference in Tokyo
Dale Emanuel, President of Solomon Associates, has been invited to present at the 25th Japan Petroleum Institute (JPI) Petroleum Refining Conference in Tokyo, Japan on October 26 of this year. His speech entitled “The Path to Pacesetter Reliability ＆Maintenance Performance” will focus on the qualities of exceptional RAM programs around the globe. JPI is an organization [...]
Giving your refinery a “clean bill of health”
Fred Mackie, senior consultant for Solomon Associates, was quoted today in Arabian Business on the topic of refinery and chemical plant maintenance. You can read the full article, titled “Clean bill of health,” here. To provide further context, here are excerpts from Mackie’s email interview with writer Abdelghani Henni: What are the most common problems [...]
