past editions

Mumbai, India – October 17, 2023: The Distillation Experts Conclave (Di.Ex.), India's premier technical forum dedicated exclusively to distillation, showcased its unwavering commitment to excellence during its highly successful fourth edition, held on October 12th and 13th, 2023. Organized by Three Ten Initiative Technologies LLP, Di.Ex 2023 exceeded all expectations, bringing together industry leaders and experts on a common platform to discuss issues related to distillation advancements, case studies and research.

This two-day conference held in Mumbai gathered global distillation experts and key stakeholders from various industries, including oil and gas, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, technology, and engineering companies. Di.Ex 2023 received support from esteemed sponsors who shared the vision of advancing distillation, including Sulzer India Pvt. Ltd. and Shell India Markets Pvt. Ltd, the Board of Radiation & Isotope Technology, Aarti Industries Ltd., and Nayara Energy. Chemical Industry Digest and PTQ/Digital Refining served as media partners, extending the reach of the Distillation Experts Conclave's message.

As the fourth edition of the conclave, Di.Ex 2023 continued the success of its predecessors, drawing over 86 attendees from diverse industries such as chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, refining, equipment manufacturing, and service providers. More than 25 participating companies represented the event's broad appeal to the industry.

Notably, over 70% of the attendees came from major refining, chemical, and petrochemical companies, emphasizing the industry's collective dedication to improving process safety. Leading organizations like Aarti Industries, Aggreko, Amines & Plasticizers, BPCL-Bina, BPCL-Kochi, BPCL-Mumbai, BRIT, CB&I Lummus, DWC Innovations, EIL, Finolex Industries, Fluor, Gulbrandsen, HMEL-Bhatinda, HPCL-Mumbai, HPCL-R&D, IISc Bengaluru, Integrated Global Services, IOCL-RHQ-PDEC - Delhi, Koch Engineered Solutions, Nayara-Vadinar, National Chemical Laboratory, Paques, RIL-Mumbai, Shell, Sulzer, Swan Enterprises, and Tojo Vikas were in attendance.

The conference featured a comprehensive program. The first day began with a keynote presentation by Mr. Chandrakant Joshi, Director of Technology at Sulzer India Pvt. Ltd., while the second day was kicked off by a keynote presentation from Pradip Mukherjee, Chief Executive at Board of Radiation & Isotope Technology. One of the highlights of the event was a virtual live presentation by global distillation GURU, Henry Kister, and global steam condensate expert Jim Risko on the second day. There were eleven sessions focusing on Advancements in Column Hardware, Capacity Enhancement, Reliability Improvement, Case Studies, Novel Separation, Revamps, and Effective Digital & Analytical Intervention. Attendees had the opportunity to gain valuable insights and engage in knowledge-sharing sessions with their peers from various organizations and leadership levels. Another unique aspect of the meeting was an open house, crowd sourced Q&A session at the end of each day that allowed audience to upvote questions of interest and in-turn allowed questions that had higher interest levels to be featured first. 

The fifth edition of the conclave will be conducted in 2024. 

Three Ten Initiative Technologies LLP (310i) (www.the310i.com) organized the Distillation Experts Conclave 2022 (DEC2022) from 2-4 August 2022, bringing together global distillation experts on a virtual platform. The three-day conclave focused on – Troubleshooting & Optimization, Separation Fundamentals, Safety & Reliability, Absorption, Treating & Extraction, Revamps, and Internals. DEC 2022 was sponsored by Quartic.ai, Evergreen Technologies Pvt. Ltd. as an exhibitor, with Fractionation Research Inc. (FRI) as its supporting partner along with Chemical Industry Digest, PTQ/Digital Refining, DEW Magazine as media partners.

DEC 2022 is the third-edition of the conclave that follows previous editions success in 2018 and 2021. The conclave was well attended with over 280 attendees from various operating companies, EPCs, licensors, and technology providers. In all, there were 95 participating companies from 28 countries, with 42 of them being operating companies. Over 80% of the attendees belonged to major refining, chemical, and petrochemical companies, including Aarti Industries, Addar, Aggreko, Alpek, AMACS, Amines & Plasticizers, Bahrain, Bazan, BPCL, Bhabha Atomic, CPCL, CSIR, Dhamra LNG, DTEC, DWC Innovations, Eastman, EIL, ExxonMobil, Gazprom, HMEL, HPCL, ICA Fluor, IOCL, Irving, ITRI, J.H.Foglietta, Keyera, Koch Engineered Solutions, Kuwait, KNPC, Laxmi Organics, Linde GmbH, Lummus, Manali Petrochemicals, MRPL, MTPI, Munters, Neogen ,NRL, ONGC, Petrobras, Petronas, Philps 66, Qatar Gas, RIL, Repsol, SABIC, Sasol, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Slovnaft, Solvay, SRF, Sulzer, Thai Oil, and Worley.

The three-day virtual conclave had 20 expert sessions from Quartic.ai, Fractionation Research Inc., Integrated Global Services, Evergreen Technologies Pvt. Ltd., EIL, Sulzer, Shell, BRIT, TLV, Fluor, BPCL, Petronas, Tojo Vikas, Raschig, OGT, Hovyu, Transcend, RVT, Kaypear, and IOCL. Each session had detailed presentations and interactive Q&A, with an over 200 questions from the attendees answered by the expert speakers. 

Three Ten Initiative Technologies LLP (310i) (www.the310i.com) organized the Distillation Experts Conclave 2021 (DEC2021) from 3-6 August 2021, bringing together global distillation experts on a virtual platform. Each day of the four-day conclave was focused on one theme – safety and digitization, operations & debottlenecking, process intensification & debottlenecking, and advancement in separations.  

DEC 2021 is the second edition of the conclave that closely follows the first edition’s success in Mumbai in 2018.  DEC 2021 was sponsored by Tridiagonal Solutions, with Fractionation Research Inc. (FRI) as its supporting partner along with PTQ/Digital Refining as the official publication and Chemical Industry Digest as the media partner.  The conclave was well attended with over 450 attendees from various operating companies, EPCs, licensors, and technology providers. In all, there were 90 participating companies from 18 countries, with 42 of them being operating companies. Over 80% of the attendees belonged to major refining, chemical, and petrochemical companies, including Aarti Industries, ADNOC, Aggreko, Alkyl Amines, BORL, Chemplast Sanmar, BPCL, Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer, Chevron, CPCL, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, Gharda Chemicals, HMEL, HPCL, IOCL, KIPIC, KNPC, MRPL, Nayara Energy, NRL, OGDCL, OPAL, Petronas, Phillips66, RIL, SABIC, SASOL, Syngene, Thirumalai Chemicals, Total, TUPRAS, and Woodside Energy.  

The four-day virtual conclave had 12 expert sessions from Ingenero Technologies, HPCL, Kaypear Engineering, Fluor, TLV Corporation, BARC, DWC Innovations, RVT Process Equipment, RIL, BPCL, CSIR-IIP, and U. of Manchester. Each session had detailed presentations and interactive Q&A, with an over 320 questions from the attendees answered by the expert speakers. The next edition of the conclave will be conducted as a physical event (situations permitting) in August 2022.

The Distillation Experts Meeting 2018, was an event exclusive to industry attendees with the focus on bringing together the global process engineering expertise to India and provide a platform for engineering personnel to interact and gain from collective experience. Experts from FRI and other Indian and international companies including RIL, HPCL, IOCL, BPCL, CPCL, Sulzer, Raschig Gmbh, BARC, GTI Solutions, and CSIR-IIP presented on topics related to distillation safety, troubleshooting & debottlenecking, gamma scanning, control, and design to name a few. This was a one-of-its-kind event designed to provide engineers and scientists a chance to interact with the who’s who of the distillation world.  

This meeting offered insights into some rare topics which are generally never touched upon by commercial exhibition style events in India. Attendees of the meeting ended up having an increased awareness regarding various best practices followed globally. Some of the unique aspects of the meeting include–

• Detailed coverage of Gamma Scanning, Risk Analysis, Troubleshooting, Column Inspections and Safety, Extractive Distillation, CDU Revamps, Column Internals, and Distributors.
• Unique Q&A forum with an open-house discussion where problems faced by any of the attendees can be freely discussed and suggestions/comments offered by the entire forum.
• Insights into the working of the world’s largest distillation research consortium – FRI