φ

WASTE TO WEALTH
A History of Gas Processing in Canada
by Fred Stenson
(352 pages)

Published by Canadian Gas Processors Association
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
ISBN 0-88925-583-0
1985

Excerpts...

Canadian Fina Oil Ltd. enjoyed a reputation as a source of innovation in the
Canadian gas processing industry, particularly through its operations at
Windfall and Wildcat Hills. The company originated in 1950 when Petrofina S.
A. of Belgium sent Trajan Nitescu to Canada to organize and run a
subsidiary. Nitescu was Rumanian by birth and worked with Petrofina's
Rumanian subsidiary from 1926 until the end of World War II. At that time,
he resigned his post as General Manager of the Oil Department because the
company, like the country, was being taken over by the communists. For this
and other reasons, he was soon an enemy of the Rumanian state, forced into
hiding. After six months of flight from the secret police, he and his wife
swam the Danube River at night to the relative safety of Communist
Yugoslavia. They were still prisoners under Tito's regime, but eventually
were allowed to leave because of high level, indirect pressure from the
United States and Belgium.

Nitescu took up employment with his old company Petrofina after the War and
came to Canada. Under Nitescu's guidance, Canadian Fina grew rapidly through
takeovers. In a short time, it absorbed Western Leaseholds Ltd. ( a public
company with large holdings controlled by Eric Harvie) and Calvan
Consolidated.

Canadian Fina's contribution to the understanding of sour gas begins with
its
involvement in the Whitecourt region, specifically with it interest in the
Windfall cycling plant. Two of the key people involved at Windfall were,
like Nitescu, Europeans who had suffered under communist rule. Dr. Alexander
Petrunic, a Croatian scientist jailed by Tito after the War for his
socialist involvements, escaped to Canada with Nitescu's help and was
quickly employed by Fina. Nitescu knew Petrunic both as an established
industrial scientist and a professor of considerable stature. When a bright
young Hungarian student by the name of Joe Lukacs made his escape to Canada
after Hungary's quickly repressed revolt of 1956, Nitescu snapped him up as
well, offering Lukacs a scholarship to complete his studies at the
University
of Alberta, then hiring him in the summers and after his degree to work for
Fina. Lukacs' Master's Degree Thesis on the water content in sour gas was
based on his working experience at Windfall.

.............................................

Another individual who contributed enormously to the understanding of
sulphur recovery was Dr. Alexander Petrunic, a Croatian engineer who went to
work for Canadian Fina after his escape from Tito's Yugoslavia. So many
people remember Dr. Petrunic fondly and with admiration that it is hard to
know whom to quote in that regard. It is probably enough to say that almost
everyone who has made important contributions to sulphur research cites Dr.
Petrunic as an important influence and friend. Dr. Petrunic's first work
with Fina took place at the Windfall pilot plant. Trajan Nitescu believed
that all his employees must experience the industry at first hand;
consequently, the middle-aged ex-professor Petrunic found himself wading
through the muskeg of Whitecourt along with other men.

Always a teacher, Dr. Petrunic offered to run a school for the twenty or so
men working at Windfall. Most of his superiors thought such a thing would
fizzle out after a day or two, but they allowed him to go ahead. The real
problem turned out to be that everyone wanted to attend and that interest
did not wane. It was hard to run the opration with all hands in school. It
was an example of Dr. Petrunic's powers as a teacher, his ability to inspire
people with the desire to improve their knowledge.

One of those encouraged by Dr. Petrunic at Windfall was young Joe
Lukacs...After working ar Windfall, running lab tests often at Dr.
Petrunic's request, Lukacs returned to university to do his Master's. The
subject of his thesis was water content in high pressure sour gas, a problem
which had devilled the Windfall project, and which Dr. Petrunic had
suggested he investigate. Lucacs' thesis broke new ground for the industry,
adding to the basis of information needed to solve various sour gas design
problems.

In the 1960's, Dr. Petrunic went to Fina's Wildcat Hills plant where he
again worked with Joe Lukacs. It was there that Dr. Petrunic did his
pioneering studies on the modified Claus process. He went through the plant,
step by step, analyzing all aspects of performance and raising necessary
questions. Could the catalyst be improved? What would the features of an
improved catalyst be? Could they cycle the acid gases to get at the
entrained sulphur?

Dr. Petrunic's work is summed up in a paper on Wildcat Hills delivered to
the CNGPA in the year of his tragic death. The major problem at Wildcat
Hills was that it was required by the Conservation Board and the Department
of Health to achieve a 93% recovery of sulphur and that it was not doing it.
In his paper, Dr. Petrunic also explained why the industry was now eager to


changed entirely, so that at the present time it could be said that the
sweet gas is a welcome by-product, and producers are happy to have a high
concentration of H2S in the gas."

The difficulty in achieving high sulphur recovery at Wildcat Hills (common
to many plants) was that the raw gas contained more carbon dioxide than it
did hydrogen sulphide, making the acid gas mixture almost incombustible. Dr.
Petrunic remedied the problem with a series of adjustments to the front
combustion chamber. Among other things, he made it longer, creating more
time for the difficult combustion reactions to take place.

Perhaps the most important of the many other refinements Dr. Petrunic made
at Wildcat Hills was his work on catalysis. The bauxite used at Fina, when
he came, seemed to break down readily, and the bauxite fines were hampering
the rest of the process. He used the plant's two identical sulphur trains to
compare different catalysts and found that activated alumina did
dramatically
better than either granular or pelletized bauxite.

Although Dr. Petrunic's actual contributions helped the industry immensely,
Joe Lukacs suggests it was only the beginning of what he could have done had
he been designing plants rather than improving on existing ones. For Lukacs,
Dr. Petrunic's greatest contribution was the spirit of analytical inquiry
that he instilled in those with whom he worked. He proved that a working
plant could be a highly effective laboratory, and that engineers working in
Canada could be - indeed had to be - innovators in sour gas chemistry and
engineering.

In 1969, the year of Dr. Petrunic's death in an Air France crash in the Bay
of Caracas, the CNGPA initiated its Research Fund. One of the biggest
projects ever promoted by CNGPA Research Fund was a pilot plant situated
inside an actual gas plant (first at Petrogas and then at Gulf Nevis) to
study catalysts. It was a project after Dr. Petrunic's own heart, one in
which he might have been involved had he lived. The CNGPA also honoured Dr.
Petrunic's memory by creating a University of Calgary engineering
scholarship in his name.

.............................................

DR. ALEXANDER PETRUNIC

When asked whom they would like to see given special recognition in this
history, a great many informants suggested Dr. Alexander Petrunic. By deed
and example, they felt Dr. Petrunic had improved Canadian processing as much
as any single person.

Before he came to Canada from his native Croatia in the mid-'50's, Dr.
Petrunic achieved a great deal of respect in Europe as both a professor and
a chemical engineer. He had also been a victim of that continent's
realignments and political swings. Prior to World War II, Dr. Petrunic had
been active as an advocate of socialism and that made him unpopular with the
Nazis and just as unpopular with Tito's communists when they came to power.
After the communist take-over in Yugoslavia, Dr. Petrunic was jailed. His
salvation was his engineering acumen. Prior to being imprisoned, he had been
teaching in the university at Zagreb and also serving as a technical
director at a carbon black plant. A disasterous explosion at that plant
during Dr. Petrunic's imprisonment seems to have made the politicians
recalculate the cost of keeping such a man in jail. He was released, given
an apology and asked to resume his position at the plant.

Back in Yugoslavian society, Dr. Petrunic repeatedly refused requests that
he join
the communist party. His life became increasingly dangerous until, finally,
he left for Canada and employment with Trajan Nitescu's Canadian Fina.

Nitescu and Petrunic had met as engineers before the war, and again as
victims of political repression after it. Nitescu had been pursued by the
Rumanian communists, and had passed through Yugoslavia on his road to
freedom. In many ways, the similarity between the men ends there. Nitescu
was a free-enterpriser with no love for the Left, and the friendship between
them must have been an interesting one, based on a common belief in the free
expression of political views whatever they were and a common love for
Canada.

Dr. Petrunic worked for Canadian Fina from his arrival in Canada until his
untimely death in 1969. In Fina's plants, he set about improving the
efficiency of various processes. His interest and ability as a teacher never
left him and he informed his co-workers on subjects from chemistry and
engineering to personal conduct and the presentation of technical papers. In
his private life, he was renowned for his sense of humour, his concern for
Canada and his assistance to Croatian immigrants making their adjustment to
Canada. Dr. Petrunic and his greatly respected wife Draga were killed in an
Air France crash in the Bay of Caracas in 1969.

.............................................

In 1969, not long after he had delivered what would, by the end of the year,
be recognized as the best member paper, Dr. Alexander Petrunic was killed in
an air crash. Prior to emigrating to Canada, Dr. Petrunic had been a
distinguished professor at both the University of Vienna and the University
of Zagreb. It was fitting, then, that the CNGPA honour his memory and his
contributions to the Canadian processing industry by creating a university
scholarship in his name. The Dr. Alexander Petrunic Memorial Scholarship is
presented annually to a second-year student of engineering at the University
of Calgary.