Stacks Image 44

The Asphalt Challenge

The asphalt industry has experienced many complex challenges over the last 20-25 years and the continued success of individual companies is strongly dependent on efficient operations and utilizing new technologies and new products to solve the challenges they face.

In the 1990’s, global crude oil was trending towards heavy sour (sulfur-bearing) crude with the resulting asphalt production increasingly being fed to cokers to maximize the recovered value of the heavy crude.

Development of the Canadian Oil Sands and subsequent recovery of the sand-bound bitumen generated a new heavy crude but the recovered oil was too viscous to transport without dilution. Upgraders were required to produce a “synthetic crude oil” that could be efficiently transported by rail or pipeline but the resulting characteristics of this synthetic crude oil and particularly of the contained bitumen are very different than that of conventional crude oil.

Refiners in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions began to experience a significant decline in m-Value, which in many cases, was tied to their processing an increasing amount of this synthetic crude oil and that trend continues to expand today as more synthetic crude is processed by an increasing number of refiners across the country.

The PDVSA strike and resulting loss of asphalt supply in 2002-2003, challenged the industry to quickly learn how to qualify and use alternative asphalts and extenders. When PDVSA asphalt returned to the marketplace, the product quality had changed and the asphalt marketplace had also changed.

During the shale boom from 2008-2014, the increasing availability of low-cost shale oil from fracking fields like the Bakken and Eagle Ford, enticed refiners to process less heavy crude. As shale oil carries little asphalt, the result was less available asphalt and the asphalt quality again had changed.

Following the OPEC price reduction in late 2014, continued investment in the shale fields became uneconomical and suddenly the refining community shifted back to processing large quantities of imported heavy crude. Unfortunately, the ensuing quality variations of the generated asphalt were much greater than prior experience, leaving a new and more complex challenge to the end user; how to formulate to frequently-changing base binder characteristics.

In late 2016, OPEC agreed to reduce production to stabilize pricing and North American shale oil gradually returned to become the world’s marginal crude supply, providing crude oil price stability but again threatening North American asphalt supply.

Integrated traders took advantage of price arbitrage in 2016-2019, bringing new supplies of asphalt to the U.S. East Coast and further magnifying the quality deficiencies of the asphalt this industry relies on.

The COVID pandemic wave in 2020 brought a whole new set of challenges to the global refining community and to all of the market segments dependent on this industry. Fuel demand plummeted and refinery rates were reduced or refineries entirely shut down. As we entered 2021, demand is slowly recovering but the refining community still seeks the right balance of crude oil selection and refined product economics, further stressing the related quality issues in products such as asphalt. The asphalt end-user needs to be prepared for more challenges ahead.

Further compounding the challenges of managing changing asphalt quality; the expanding use of asphalt additives, extenders and diluents has greatly magnified the complexity of developing and maintaining a cost-effective and successful formulation for a paving or roofing application.

A huge wave of vegetable oil-based rejuvenators and extenders entered the marketplace over the last 5-7 years as stories of unexplained early road failures shocked the state and federal highway agencies and threatened to isolate and potentially ban many useful modifier chemistries.

Recent issues of over-use or miss-use of some of these new additive chemistries has again shocked the marketplace and generated caution and skepticism of many promising and beneficial chemistries.

Today, the asphalt user seeking help with chemical additives is challenged to choose between vendor promises and market rumors of early road failures, which actually may be more attributed to the lack of discipline in the use of one or more of the many additive chemistries.

Crude oil selection by the refiner is largely based on total refining economics, not the selling price of asphalt, regardless of the end use of that asphalt. Refining decisions, driven by the need to generate higher value products to recover their investments, typically do not reflect or even consider the roofing manufacturers’ or paving contractors’ requirements for consistent quality asphalt. A refiner today will have little interest in choosing a select crude slate in order to generate a better quality asphalt.

In little more than a decade, North America has experienced (i) significant shifts in the availability of asphalt, (ii) higher costs for the available asphalt but more importantly, (iii) dramatic and continuing changes in asphalt quality & consistency; all of which, threatens the paving contractor’s and roofing manufacturer’s long-term ability to provide a high quality product, significantly increases the costs of paving our highways and ultimately, impacts the life cycle of those roofs and highways.

Highway paving in the U.S. uses 18-20 Million tons of asphalt each year and ~60% of that asphalt is modified with SBS, EVA, APP, GTR or other compounds to add specific functionalities. The roofing industry uses 4-5 Million tons of asphalt each year and approximately 20% of roofing asphalt is modified with SBS, APP or other polymers. These polymer modifiers provide elongation, elastic recovery, wear resistance and enhanced thermoplastic characteristics at a wide range of temperature and environmental conditions, allowing the asphalt compounds to yield longer life highways and more resilient roofs on many commercial buildings, schools and hospitals.

As asphalt quality has declined, polymer affinity and effectiveness have also changed, in many cases, requiring additional polymer to compensate or using chemical modification to offset or delay the impact. Applications extend beyond roofing or paving applications and add substantial benefit to adhesive and sealant formulations.

These rapidly changing circumstances continue to present an opportunity for a group of modifiers to predictably (a) improve or protect weathering characteristics for shingle manufacturers, (b) improve polymer affinity in the case of SBS, APP or other polymer modified products for paving and roofing applications, (c) improve processing characteristics of filled asphalt compounds, (d) allow use of lower cost and more readily available asphalt feedstock, all without compromise of pavement performance or roofing manufacturer's warranty requirements.

This portfolio of products must fit into and be compatible with the vast range of chemistries and structures found in asphalt (which naturally varies in composition based on the crude oil). In some cases, these novel materials may provide improved functionality to the compound and to the finished product. In other cases, they may function as compatibilizers or as cross-linking agents to improve the durability characteristics of the asphalt compound or pavement mix.


Our Solutions

Our organization, our Technology Partners, our Alliance Partners and our Technical Sales Associates provide practical and hands-on experience to asphalt modification for paving and roofing applications. We are recognized and trusted by our customers and industry colleagues as focused on offering true value through our products and through our guidance.

The products we offer here are proven and established in the North American and Global marketplace as effective and economical means to offset the decline in the performance of today’s asphalt products.

We understand the technical aspects of the changes with crude oil selection and the impacts on asphalt quality over the last 25 years, and we have worked diligently to develop and offer a variety of unique and new products to provide solutions. Our focus is to efficiently and economically improve asphalt performance.

How we can help

High RAP & RAS

We offer multiple proven pathways to rejuvenate aged asphalt binder. Our GREEN and 100% renewable rejuvenator chemistries extract and recover the aged binder and promote re-distribution of the regenerated binder across the old and new aggregate. Low temperature PG performance and crack resistance are improved and the resulting mix will yield full warm-mix benefits. (“Warm-Mix and High RAP Additiveson Our Products page.)


Warm Mix & Compaction

Today, the focus behind warm-mix has changed from saving energy at the mix plant to the quest for better compaction; potentially reducing the number of required rollers, reducing the time for road closures and/or extending the paving season in Northern climates.

We offer multiple proven pathways to warm-mix with one being the same GREEN chemistries that support high RAP/RAS content in your mix. These unique chemistries substantially enhance water-foaming as a far-improved warm-mix option than the use of water alone. No other chemistry can offer the combined benefits of high RAP/RAS and warm-mix in a single additive.

A different chemistry path offers equivalent warm-mix benefits from a slip-agent technology with substantially improved low-temperature mix handling characteristics. (“
Warm-Mix and High RAP Additiveson Our Products page.)


Modify binder viscosity

Our GREEN and 100% renewable chemistries offer safe, efficient and economical means to reduce binder viscosity and adjust the PG of the binder, versus using aromatic extracts or other products that may contain or be produced from hazardous ingredients. (“Asphalt Performance Modifierson Our Products page.)


Water foaming


The #1 complaint with water-foaming today is the rapidly stiffening mix as it’s hauled to the job site. Our GREEN and 100% renewable chemistries will better than triple the foam half-life, extending hauling distance and extending laydown and compaction time, while at the same time, leaving behind an enhanced and more durable and age-resistant binder. (
“Enhanced Water Foaming” on Our Products page.)

Improve workability


Our warm-mix technologies offer substantially improved workability to your mix, regardless if a virgin mix or RAP/RAS mix. Many recycle mixes are stiff and difficult to handle. These additives, while also improving PG of the recycle binder, will make these difficult mixes manageable again. (
“Warm-Mix and High RAP Additives” & “Pavement Performance Modifiers” on Our Products page.)


Cracking & raveling


Our GREEN and 100% renewable chemistries offer significant improvement in crack resistance of the pavement mix. The rejuvenation and co-mingling of any recycle binder with the virgin binder assures improved mix strength that is less prone to cracking and raveling. (
“Asphalt Performance Modifiers” on Our Products page.)


Dry or stiff mix


Most dry or stiff mixes result from insufficient binder or ineffective recycle binder in a mix. Our GREEN and 100% renewable rejuvenator chemistries extract and recover the aged RAP/RAS binder and will promote co-mingling with the virgin binder and re-distribution of the regenerated binder across the old and new aggregate. (
“Asphalt Performance Modifiers” on Our Products page.)


Improve binder m-Value


Where “m-Value” is the rate of change of Creep Stiffness of the binder over time, many refiners processing synthetic crude oil have seen a significant decline in m-Value of their asphalt. A small addition of our GREEN and 100% renewable chemistries will offer significant improvement in m-Value for those unusual binders with high asphaltene content, and at nominal cost to the refiner, terminal or the contractor.
(“Asphalt Performance Modifiers” on Our Products page.)


Improve PMA production


Our family of efficient asphalt cross-linkers will vastly improve your PMA reaction at lower costs than alternative sulfur-based cross-linkers. They are fast acting and remain more predictable than using raw sulfur; all three being less likely to gel from over-reaction. (“
Reduced-Odor Cross-linking Agentson Our Products page.)


Continuing the search

We will continue on our quest to find better products to improve your mix formulation.

That search effort has already led us to recent discoveries in (1) specialty asphalts for roofing and other applications, (2) new channels of specialty process oils, (3) melt-version SBS polymers and (4) a collection of other unique and exciting polymer compositions for use into multiple industries.

As our customer, your questions are important to us. If you are unable to find the answers you seek on these pages, please call us or email us your questions at the contact numbers and addresses listed below.
ENGINEERED ADDITIVES BOTTOM LINE SAVINGS
  • Cost Savings In Energy, Equipment and Materials
  • Ask Us About Our $$$$ Savings and Dosage Calculator
  • Job and Finished Product Improvements
  • Green Chemistries
  • Safe and Easy-To-Use Products
  • We Provide Excellent Technical and Customer Support

Phone: (973) 216-3560 • Fax: (970) 251-7254 • obscured-email

320 Commons Drive, Suite 313, Parkesburg, PA 19365
Offices in: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida |
EA

Asphalt Performance Modifiers and Additives