ExxonMobil joins TSI to help build
new markets for sulphur
WASHINGTON, D.C. — ExxonMobil Corporation, a leading global oil, natural gas, and petrochemicals company with operations in more than 200 countries, has joined forces with The Sulphur Institute and its member companies to develop fertilizer and other new markets for recovered sulphur.
ExxonMobil is the fourth major oil and gas company to join the institute in as many months, says Robert J. Morris, president of The Sulphur Institute (TSI), a non-profit market-development organization in Washington, D.C., representing the international sulphur industry. The other new members are ConocoPhillips, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Qatar Petroleum.
“Ninety percent of the world’s sulphur is now produced involuntarily by the oil and gas industry,” Morris says. “The industry’s leaders are now stepping forward, acknowledging this responsibility and working through TSI to expand and develop new markets for recovered sulphur.”
F. Terry Draycott chairman of TSI and president and CEO of PRISM Sulphur Corporation, Calgary, Canada, notes that ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned oil and gas company in the world.
“Teaming their resources with those of other members will go a long way toward expanding our market development efforts and reducing stockpiles at refineries worldwide,” he adds.
On the downstream end of its business, ExxonMobil has an ownership interest in 46 refineries, located in 26 countries, with distillation capacity of 6.3 million barrels per day, and lubricant base stock manufacturing capacity of 150 thousand barrels per day. It produces sulphur, mostly in the elemental form, at 56 locations in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific.
“ExxonMobil is committed to being the world's premier petroleum and petrochemical company,” says Richard A Gomez, global sulphur manager for the ExxonMobil, Fairfax, Va.
“To that end, we must continuously achieve superior financial and operating results while adhering to the highest standards of business conduct. I think joining TSI to help expand market development for sulphur is a good example of that commitment. Its an initiative that will benefit the environment while making our industry more efficient and sustainable.”
Several other major oil companies — BP Canada Energy Company, BP Products North America, Jupiter Sulphur LLC, Koch Sulphur Products Company LLC, PRISM Sulphur Corporation, Shell Canada Limited, Shell Europe Oil Products and Shell Oil Products US — are already working with TSI to develop new markets such as sulphur asphalt and sulphur concrete, while expanding traditional markets such as sulphur-containing fertilizers.
The impact of TSI’s efforts is paying off in large markets such as China, now the world’s leading importer of sulphur. According to Morris, China consumes 67 percent of the world’s additional production — “sulphur that could be sitting in stockpiles if not for these market-development efforts,” he says. Similar opportunities exist in India and other untapped markets, but they need to be cultivated, he says.
Sulphur is used to make a wide variety of products, including fertilizers, fibers, pigments, non-ferrous metals, paper, plastics and some types of detergents and medicines. Over the years, clean-air regulations mandating significant reductions in sulphur dioxide emissions have made it necessary for energy companies to remove sulphur from all fuel products, thus creating a large stream of involuntary sulphur.
For more information about TSI and its efforts to develop new markets for sulphur, please contact The Sulphur Institute, 1140 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 612, Washington, DC 20036, USA. Phone: (202) 331-9660. Fax: (202) 293-2940. Internet: www.sulphurinstitute.org Email: sulphur@sulphurinstitute.org.