Honeywell has announced the appointment of John Gugel as president of Honeywell UOP, a leading supplier of process technology, catalysts, engineered systems, and technical and engineering services to the global petroleum refining, petrochemical, chemical and gas processing industries. 

 

With more than 25 years serving in numerous roles at Honeywell UOP, Gugel is an established leader in the oil and gas processing industries. He succeeds Rebecca Liebert, who had been president of Honeywell UOP since 2016. 

 

Gugel reports to Rajeev Gautam, president of Honeywell’s performance materials & technologies division, and who also served as president of UOP from 2009 to 2016.

 

Prior to his current role, Gugel served as vice president and general manager UOP’s Process Technology and Equipment business, and prior to that, held the same role as head of UOP’s Gas Processing and Hydrogen business. He earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

 

Honeywell UOP was founded in Chicago in 1914 to commercialise the first process technology for the mass production of gasoline. The company introduced catalysis to the refining industry in 1933, and later created the core technologies for the modern petrochemicals industry. 

 

UOP led the development of cleaner-burning fuels, including unleaded gasoline, and the catalytic converter. It also developed linear alkylbenzene, which is the basis for biodegradable detergents. UOP also pioneered the development of technologies that produce diesel and jet fuel from renewable sources, and that processes natural gas so it can be safely transported and stored.

 

UOP’s adsorbent technologies separate chemical compounds, and are the primary technology used to remediate contamination at sites such as the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. More recently, Honeywell UOP developed the technologies to convert coal into plastics, use ionic liquids instead of acids to produce high-octane fuels, and use connected plant services to improve the operation of refineries and petrochemical and gas plants. Today, 31 of the 36 refining technologies commonly in use around the world today were developed by Honeywell UOP.

 

In the Middle East, Honeywell has been a trusted advisor to the oil and gas industry for the past 60 years. Honeywell UOP was present at Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia in 1963 to start up the first UOP Merox unit in the region for Saudi Aramco. This was followed by the first hydrocracker at the Jeddah Oil Refinery, also in Saudi Arabia, and the first of several hydroprocessing units for the Shuaiba refinery in Kuwait. Today, nearly 400 UOP process and adsorption units are in operation across the Middle East. 

 

Based in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, UOP has 29 offices and other facilities around the world and has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honeywell since 2005. - TradeArabia News Service