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Press release

وجود النفط في لبنان لن يزيد فرص العمل في هندسة البترول (علي علوش) قد يظن البعض أن وجود البترول في المياه الإقليمية اللبنانية واحتمال البدء بالتنقيب عنه واستخراجه في وقت قريب سيخلق فرص عمل للبنانيين كثر، خصوصاً المتخصصين في هندسة البترول. لكن هذه الفرضية تعترضها حقيقة أن الشركات المُلّزّمة للتنقيب عن النفط واستخراجه هي شركات أجنبية. ما يرجّح احتمال أن تستعين هذه الشركات بموظفين أجانب، خصوصاً المهندسين منهم.

Events & conferences

Prof. dr.ing. Cursaru Diana Luciana is visiting the Faculty of Engineering.   Based on the collaboration between the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti (UPG) from Romania and the Lebanese University and after a fruitful meeting during the third Erasmus Plus Capacity Building GOPELC workshop in whichProf. dr.ing. Cursaru Diana Luciana, were involved, the Faculty of Engineering invited Prof. Cursaruto visit the Faculty of Engineering of the Lebanese University as a visiting professor within the framework of the Erasmus + program for the period from 5 to l4 May 2017.   Prof. Cursarugave three lectures at the three section of the Faculty of Engineering of 3 hours each. The lecture covered the following topics: -       Chemistry and technology of Lubricating oils (lubricants functions, synthesis, characterization, classifications, type of lubricants) -       Biofuels and biodiesel (types, synthesis, characterization, pro and cons of oils substitutes).

Workshop on:GOPELC “Gas and Oil Processing, a European Lebanese Cooperation”Within the framework of    TheFirst International Conference on Energy, Power, Petroleum and Petrochemical Engineering (E3PE2017)
1- GOPELC presentation by Prof. Clovis Francis, Lebanese University   Energy problems play an important role in the global development of industrial and underdevelopedcountries. Energy issues are usually accompanied with the challenging trade off of energy productionand environmental sustainability. This problem is the biggest challenge facing the Lebanese society sinceit is negatively impacting the Lebanese people health, the Lebanese economy, and transforming theLebanese ecological system equilibrium.   Recently, an offshore reserve of Oil and Gas was localized in the Mediterranean Sea near the Lebanesecoast. The Lebanese Government set up a new “Gas and Oil Committee” belonging to the Water andEnergy Ministry. The goal of this Committee is to publish tenders for Gas and Oil Offshore inspection andexploitation. An increasing demand for Engineers in the field of new reservoir drilling and fuel rawmaterial processing is expected in the upcoming twenty‐five years.   The Lebanese Higher Education sector is a well‐developed one. This sector regroups one public University which is the Lebanese University (LU) and more than 50 private universities. All the Lebaneseuniversities’ curricula are one step behind in the field of Gas and Oil processing. This is due to the factthat the country is not a producer of this kind of raw material. Two refineries were present in the country before the civil war (1975‐1989). Those refineries were completely destroyed during the civil war and their actual role has been reduced to the imported fuel storage.   This project will address all the above problems by setting up a new teaching curriculum at the Lebaneseuniversities by a joint effort with the European universities members of the Consortium. This project willincrease the future engineer’s awareness to those issues. This project will also help in creating a network of the Lebanese and European universities promoting academic excellence through joint research, education, and exchange of experience. This will contribute in the sustainable development of the Lebanese higher educational system and in improving the career prospects of scholars in their homecountries. 

2- Overview on Pertroleum Industry by Dr Rami Harkous, Beirut Arab University  The presentation briefly introduces the petroleum industry and petroleum engineering. Beginning by the origin, migration and accumulation of petroleum and how hydrocarbons are explored using some geophysical techniques. Some petrophysical properties will be then discussed in the reservoir engineering section. Finally, fundamentals of drilling and production operations will be mentioned.

3- The Most Important Processes in the Refining and Petrochemical Industry: An Overview on the Production and Use of Hydrogen by Dr Wael Hamd, Lebanese University   One of the most challenging issues in this century is energy. Compared to other sources, Oil will continue to be a hugely important energy source in the years to come, but it is now crucial to optimize the oil production technologies and the processes involved in the transformation of petroleum-based hydrocarbons into the chemicals that form the basis of the multi-billion dollar petrochemical industry. For instance, hydrogen consumed on-site in oil refining, and in the production of ammonia and methanol plays a key role in modern society because there are no natural hydrogen deposits. Currently the dominant technology for direct production of hydrogen from hydrocarbons is steam reforming, but its production through water splitting utilizing only fully renewable resources such as water and photons seems to be an appealing solution to durably store large amounts of energy. Herein, we describe the new process developments in the manufacture of petrochemicals, especially the progress in hydrogen production by steam reforming and water splitting.

4- Thioresistant Catalysts for Selective Ring Opening of Gas Oil (Diesel) by Dr SalimNasserddine, Lebanese University Tetralinhydroconversion over supported iridium catalysts has been investigated under pressure flowing in the presence of H2S. Decalin, naphthalene, one-ring-opening alkenes and one-ring-contraction bicyclic products are formed. The quasi absence of cracking products results in a high catalyst stability. The Ir on amorphous ilica-alumina (ASA) with intermediate concentration of silica (40 wt.%) exhibits an optimal acidity, leading to the highest thiotolerance and ring-opening selectivity. Then, the optimized catalysts were used to convert anhydrotreated gas oil and 2D GC-MS was used to identify the conversion products and to define a family of naphthenes representative of the impact of Ir catalysts on the selective ring opening reaction. 

5- Simulation of Industrial Processes by Dr Joyce Kheir Lebanese University The globalization of the economy, the constraints of environment and safety and the dynamics of the market require a very big rigor in the conception and the conduct of the processes. In the context, we have more and more often appeal to the computing to conceive quickly and economically of new more profitable, cleaner, safer and more flexible processes, and in other term “sustainable processes”. The simulation of processes allows the industrialists on one hand to analyze, to improve the efficiency of an existing process and on the other hand to model and to simulate a new production unit. This activity sector, indicated by the term “Computer-aided engineering of the processes”, knew a very important development in numerous sectors during the last years. So, the simulators of processes are the basic tools for the technicians and the engineers of processes, because they allow to design, to optimize and then to follow the performances of the majority of the existing industrial processes in various sectors: organic and mineral chemistry, from heavy to fine chemistry, the petrochemical processes, liquefaction/gasification of the coal, food-processing industry, the treatment of minerals and biotechnology. From the definition of the process components, the choice of the thermodynamic model adapted and the chemical reactions, the simulator allows to: Solve the heat and material balance of the processes Determine the equilibrium phase: liquid/liquid  and liquid/vapor Determine the characteristics (flow, composition, pressure, temperature) of the fluids which circulate between various devices of the process Sizing of equipments as for example the quantity of exchanged heat or the theoretical number of stages Estimate the cost of investment and functioning of processes, also the impact on the environment and the safety. Simulators allow establishing, in an effective and rigorous way, heat and material balance of the processes, so unloading the engineer of boring and repetitive calculations. We understand then easily why the simulators of processes constitute the basic tools for the conception of the processes.

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