The Origin, Development and Commercialization of the UOP OleflexTM Process, Bipin Vora's Vision and Leadership in Making It Happen

Since its commercialization in 1990, the UOP Oleflex^TM process has become the world’s dominant technology for on-purpose olefin production from LPG. The Oleflex process accounts for more than 30 million metric tons/year of high purity olefin products – Propylene, Isobutylene and linear C4 olefins for a wide variety of petrochemical and fuel applications. More than 30 Oleflex units are on-stream worldwide, and more than 70 Oleflex units been licensed, designed and in construction. This technology continues to advance to ever larger capacity plants with increasingly attractive CAPEX, OPEX and yields.

Bipin Vora’s work at UOP as a visionary, inventor, and promotor of on-purpose olefin production has had an important and lasting influence on the Oleflex process. This presentation covers the origins of the Oleflex process and focuses on Bipin’s key contributions that led to this technology becoming the industry standard for on-purpose light olefin production.