Crude Oil Processing Research Articles

Effect of oil properties on spilled oil recovery using a mechanism coupling surface vortices and cyclone separation

Oil spills can cause severe harm and environmental pollution. Among the various treatment methods available, those that utilize hydrodynamic properties are more environmentally friendly and efficient. In this study, a free-surface vortex method was used to recover crude oil, and the flow process of crude oil with a high viscosity and density in a vortex was studied by conducting scale–scale laboratory experiments. The motion of the oil phase in the same-scale flow field was simulated using a commercial simulation software (ANSYS Fluent), and the tangential velocity distribution in the cylindrical coordinate system was used to reflect the motion of the oil phase. The experimental and simulation results demonstrate that a vortex can be used for oil recovery. The flow and recovery efficiency of crude oil were simulated and compared with the flow properties of a white oil with a low viscosity and density. Crude oil existed more in the form of large droplets in the flow, and the oil core was denser after forming a vortex. The experimental results revealed that the flow performance of crude oil was worse than that of white oil. The recovery efficiency of crude oil after passing through the vortex was lower than that of white oil. In addition, the recovery system was connected to a cyclone separation device. The feasibility of cyclone separation in offshore oil–water separation was verified by comparing the separation efficiency of the crude and white oils. The separation efficiency of crude oil was related to the split ratio. Within a certain range, the separation efficiency increases linearly with the split ratio. Combined with the principle model and numerical simulation results, the vortex motion was described in a three-dimensional space. The generalization of the application range of the recovery and separation method was summarized.

The Impact of AR Environment in Enhancing Visualization of Petroleum Refinery Process

Petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is being transformed and refined into most useful products. In the industrial process, it involves a lot of complicated physical and chemical processes that are sequentially applied for various refinery processes. Some employees are facing a difficulty to understand the training module because the tools being used limits the ability to learn and understand the abstract complex process and face the challenges to visualize the content as it is viewed via a two-dimensional (2D) method. Therefore, this paper tries to focus the attention on the practical use of AR in the crude oil refinery process, describing the potential and the effectiveness of this technology to enhance their visualization skill. The study used quasi-experimental research design on the technical employees that were trained on the basic refinery process of crude oil. Two groups of samples consist of an experimental group who were exposed to the AR environment and a control group that was taught using conventional training methods. The result demonstrated there is a significant difference between the scores obtained by the technical employees in the experimental group, thus the application of AR was able to enhance technical employees’ visualization skills as a training approach.

Improving business performance through TPM method: The evidence from the production and processing of crude oil.

Nowadays, customers expect manufacturers to supply high quality products, on-time deliveries and competitive prices. The consequence of the increased market requirements is the need to maintain high reliability and efficiency of machines and the production process. The existing methods of production management have proved to be inefficient enough to maintain the company’s competitive position on the market. The Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) concept is one of the tools to maximize equipment efficiency by establishing an optimal relationship between people and machines. The aim of the article is to present the issues related to TPM and demonstrate in the process of empirical research that it serves the purpose of improving efficiency and supports quality in the enterprise. The considerations are based on the thesis that TPM is an economical variant of maintenance and guarantees stability, quality and maximization of production efficiency. The article presents the results of empirical research in an enterprise extracting and processing pre-crudes and gas from Caspian Sea. The data from the SAP management system of the investigated enterprise were used. Based on 146 maintenance orders for 40 devices, a correlation between preventive and corrective maintenance was determined using statistical tools. The main goal of the study was to show whether preventive maintenance reduces the occurrence of failures contributing to the elimination of disturbances in the production process. In addition, we analyzed real cases of equipment failures to answer the question whether the procedure of preventive maintenance of equipment in the studied population would prevent the occurrence of these defects. The empirical study demonstrated a clear impact of Preventive Maintenance on limiting the occurrence of equipment failures, and thus production disturbances.

The effect of reaction time and temperature on the aquathermolysis process of heavy crude oil

Hydrothermal upgrading (HTU) performance during aquathermolysis process of heavy crude oil was conducted. All upgrading tests were conducted using a 300-ml autoclave batch reactor at 250 °C and 300°C under high pressure for 12, 24, 48, and 72 h in a nitrogen environment. Comprehensive analyses of physical and chemical characteristics of the upgraded oils, including viscosity, elemental composition, SARA fractions as well as Carbon number distribution in saturates of oil samples before and after upgrading, were studied to evaluate the hydrothermal upgrading performance. The results showed that, by increasing the reaction temperatures and times the upgrading performance was improved. The maximum upgrading performance was observed at 300 °C and 72 h for in terms of viscosity reduction, increasing the quantity and quality of saturates as a result of thermal decompositions of resin and asphaltenes, and increasing their quantity. In addition, an improvement in upgrading performance can be observed in the increasing of the H/C ratio, removing sulfur and nitrogen due to their desulfurization and denitrogenation. Generally, the obtained data showed that, HTU under studied conditions might be useful for heavy oil pretreatment due to the significant influence on viscosity reduction, heteroatoms removal as well as improving on its the main physical and chemical composition.

A historical overview of the evolution of the oil pricing stages for the period (1859-2020)

Oil as an international strategic commodity, its prices have gone through many changes and developments historically in the oil markets since the beginning of its circulation until now, which has been reflected on the economic, political and social conditions...etc. in the countries of the world. Therefore, countries are interested in how to price it in international markets. This research deals with a theoretical analysis of the historical development of oil prices and the stages of its pricing for the period 18592020- AD. The research aims to show the role of international oil companies and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in its pricing, and the researchers reached many results, the most important of which are: that oil prices have undergone many changes since the beginning until now And the pricing process of crude oil in its early stages depended on the declared prices due to the complete control of the international oil companies over the oil industry Oil prices and how they are priced have taken on a monopolistic character, while the producing countries did not have any role in determining its prices until the beginning of the seventies of the last century as a result of its monopoly by the major international oil companies. The establishment of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its interference in the oil market helped reduction the dominance of the international oil companies that monopolize the oil market.

Efficient processing of crude oil using direct cracking at high temperatures over modified FCC catalysts

The direct cracking of Bach Ho crude oil, having API gravity of 41°, over equilibrium FCC catalyst (Ecat), modified FCC catalyst (HT-FCC) and ZSM-5 additive were studied at 620–650 °C using short-contact-time micro activity testing unit. HT-FCC catalyst was prepared by the treatment of Ecat with oxalic acid in reflux condition. This treatment largely improves the porosity while keeping the particle size of Ecat. Hence, it leads to an important enhancement in catalytic cracking activity. Due to high activity of HT-FCC catalyst, the direct cracking of crude oil can be performed at a low catalyst-to-oil ratio (C/O) which helps to decrease the yield of dry gas. At 620–650 °C, C/O of 1.5–2.5, 18–23 wt.% of light olefins, 3–6 wt.% of dry gas together with 51–59 wt.% of gasoline yields can be obtained with HT-FCC catalyst. ZSM-5 addition favors the conversion of gasoline to light olefins. Compared to the results reported in literature, the use of HT-FCC and ZSM-5 catalysts at 650 °C, low C/O of 1.5 shows promising performances: (i) much lower dry gas yield (8%), (ii) high light-olefins yield (32%) while maintaining high gasoline yield (43%), and (iii) high BTXs content in gasoline (45%).

Effect of a Coated Wall on Wax–Asphaltene Molecule Diffusion, Aggregation, and Adhesion Mechanism: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study

Coating is increasingly used as a cost-effective strategy for controlling heavy component deposition in waxy crude oil transportation flowlines. This paper systematically investigated the micro influence mechanism of the coated wall on the diffusion, aggregation, and adhesion behavior of wax–asphaltene molecules by the molecular dynamics (MD) method. A set of experiments was performed to determine the properties of the waxy crude oil. For overcoming the limitations of the model simplification of previous MD studies, the MD models based on experimental data were developed to characterize the motion behavior of wax–asphaltene molecules on non-coated and coated wall surfaces, and the simulated densities of crude oil components had an error of less than 5% with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) data, which showed that the established model was accurate and reliable. The simulation results showed that two condensate oil layers were formed on the non-coated wall surface, the diffusion and aggregation behavior of wax–asphaltene molecules were enhanced under the low-temperature condition, and there was considerably heavy component molecules adhesion to the non-coated wall surface. The analysis of mean square displacement, radial distribution function, and relative concentration distribution revealed that 288.15 K was the peak wax precipitation, which was consistent with the experimental conclusion. It was also found that the presence of low surface energy coating weakened the diffusion of heavy component molecules. The epoxy silicone-coated had the weakest interaction with wax–asphaltene molecules. Moreover, the fact that the coated wall had a certain inhibitory effect on the aggregation and adhesion of wax–asphaltene molecules in the pipeline was proven, where the epoxy silicone-coated had the strongest inhibitory effect. These investigations present new insights and guidance for controlling heavy component deposition by coating in the pipeline transportation process of waxy crude oil.

Optimization of Sour Water Stripping Unit Using Artificial Neural Network–Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Sour water stripping can treat the sour water produced by crude oil processing, which has the effect of environmental protection, energy saving and emission reduction. This paper aims to reduce energy consumption of the unit by strengthening process parameter optimization. Firstly, the basic model is established by utilizing Aspen Plus, and the optimal model is determined by comparative analysis of back propagation neural network (BPNN), radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) and generalized regression neural network (GRNN) models. Then, the sensitivity analysis of Sobol is used to select the operating variables that have a significant influence on the energy consumption of the sour water stripping system. Finally, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to optimize the operating conditions of the sour water stripping unit. The results show that the RBFNN model is more accurate than other models. Its network structure is 5-66-1, and the expected value has an approximately linear relationship with the output value. Through sensitivity analysis, it is found that each operating parameter has an impact on the sour water stripping process, which needs to be optimized by the PSO algorithm. After 210 iterations of the PSO algorithm, the optimal system energy consumption is obtained. In addition, the cold/hot feed ratio, sideline production position, tower bottom pressure, hot feed temperature, and cold feed temperature are 0.117, 18, 436 kPa, 146 °C, and 35 °C, respectively; the system energy consumption is 5.918 MW. Compared with value of 7.128 MW before optimization, the energy consumption of the system is greatly reduced by 16.97%, which shows that the energy-saving effect is very significant.

Synthesis of refinery desulfurization solvent network with multi-stage solvent regeneration

Increasing process of sour crude oil and demand of low-sulfur oil products expand the desulfurization units in refineries, which raises the desulfurization solvent circulation as well as the energy cost for solvent regeneration. In this work, synthesis of desulfurization solvent network with multi-stage solvent regeneration is investigated to reduce the energy cost. Firstly, this work presents superstructures for desulfurization solvent network with regeneration considering one-stage structure, two-stage cascaded structure, and two-stage parallel structure, respectively. Next, mathematical models for the three cases are formulated as nonlinear programming problems where the objective function aims to minimize the total energy consumption. Finally, a case study is conducted to illustrate the proposed method. The results show that the two-stage structures reduce more energy costs than the one-stage structure by 7.65% and 8.46%, respectively, which means that two-stage regeneration is more attractive. Besides, the parallel structure is better than the cascaded structure, because the energy requirement for solvent regeneration is more sensitive to the outlet concentration of hydrogen sulfide than the inlet concentration.

An insight into molecular weight distributions of asphaltene and asphalt using Gel Permeation Chromatography

Asphaltene and asphalte precipitations during production, transportation and processing of crude oil are one of the problems in the oil industry. The amount and characteristics of these precipitations depend on the type of solvent, oil–solvent ratio, time, pressure, temperature, etc. Measuring molecular weight distributions of asphaltene and asphalt could be necessary to predict the phase behavior and prevent asphaltene and asphalte depositions. Therefore, in this study, the molecular weight distributions of asphaltene and asphalt were studied. For this purpose, asphaltene and asphalt samples were prepared by adding different ratios of precipitants such as n-pentane, n-hexane, and n-heptane in an Iranian crude oil using the IP-143 method. Then, we used Gel Permeation Chromatography to measure the molecular weight distributions of these samples. The obtained results indicate that asphaltene has more aggregation with higher molecular weight compared to asphalt. In addition, results show that the molecular weight distribution of asphaltene is generally wider than the molecular weight distribution of asphalt.

Effects of Mercury Concentration on the Health and Safety of Oil and Gas Workers

Introduction: The processing of crude oil is characterized by numerous hazards, which have significant health, safety, and environmental impacts on neighboring communities. The occurrence of mercury and its toxic derivatives is considered one of the many negative impacts of oil and gas operations. However, there is limited research on mercury and its negative effects on workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. This study examines the occurrence, exposure, and symptoms of mercury on the health and safety of oil and gas workers in Oman. It also explores the acute/chronic effects of mercury poisoning on the maintenance and inspection workers, who are more prone to the adverse effects of mercury poisoning during oil and gas operations. Methods: The two-pronged approach of literature review and survey questionnaire was used to deduce the effects of mercury exposure and poisoning using 68 respondents with 1 – 6 years of working experience in the sector. Results: Based on the questionnaire response rate of 72%, the results showed that over 90% of participants had experienced symptoms of elemental, organic, and methyl mercury poisoning. The common symptoms experienced are headaches, insomnia, weakness, hearing impairment, visual and sensory abilities. However, the respondents who experienced methyl mercury (MeHg) symptoms are due to consuming seafood and cigarettes, whereas elemental and organic mercury symptoms are due to oil and gas operations. Conclusion: The findings highlight the need for robust health and safety measures to effectively detect, monitor and eliminate mercury compounds responsible for poisoning maintenance and inspection workers.

Promising directions for the use of heat from low-potential sources of chemical production

THE PURPOSE. Development of promising directions for improving the technology of an oil refinery (refinery) based on the use of heat from low-temperature sources of the primary oil distillation system.METHODS. The analysis of the technological scheme of the refinery carried out, in order to identify the most energy-intensive system, while using the methods of analytical and thermodynamic analysis. The analysis of energy use in the circuit of an electric desalination plant (EDP) is carried out according on the basis of the data of the technological regulations of the existing EDP-AVT-7. The assessment of the feasibility of the proposed directions and developed solutions was carried out on the basis of the methods of technical, economic and environmental analysis.RESULTS. This article shows the relevance of the problem and substantiates the importance of its consideration for improving energy and environmental efficiency. Based on a common scheme for the primary processing of crude oil, it is noted that this technology has significant energy saving potential. It is proposed to implement promising directions for the rational use of heat, and a modernization solution is presented aimed at improving the technological elements of the EDP-AVT-7 circuit based on the heat recovery of the hydrocarbon vapor-gas mixture.CONCLUSION. The proposed directions and developed measures for the use of heat from low-grade sources in the refinery scheme show their promise due to a significant reduction in technological energy losses, a reduction in fuel consumption and an increase in the efficiency of its use, which, in general, will positively affect the economic and environmental situation in the region.

Predictive Study of Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Characteristic Parameters Based on the Neural Network

Corrosion of equipment by corrosive media is widespread in the processing of inferior crude oil. In hydroprocessing reactor effluent systems, corrosive media are very destructive to heat exchangers and air coolers during flow and cooling because of the high-temperature and -pressure environment. A fire and explosion in the air cooler or heat exchanger are highly likely when their tubes leak. Currently, there are no effective direct detection and prediction means to evaluate the corrosion risk in real time, creating significant hidden threats to the safe operation of the equipment. Therefore, this paper proposes a condition expansion method based on a Gaussian distribution. The distribution laws of characteristic corrosion parameters under various working conditions were studied, and the corrosion risk of the equipment was evaluated. A three-layer back-propagation neural network model is constructed to predict the characteristic corrosion parameters. After testing, the model is shown to have superior predictive accuracy and generalization performance. It can also meet the demand for real-time equipment corrosion prediction. The proposed method can serve an essential role in guiding engineers to take correct and timely prevention and control measures for different degrees of corrosion to reduce losses.

Environmental Effect of KPO-Fire in Niger Delta and Future Health Implication

Crude oil discovery and exploration in the Niger Delta of Nigeria which includes Delta, Bayelsa, Abia, Rivers, Cross River, Akwa-Ibom, Imo, Edo and Ondo States of Nigeria, has led to significant economic growth of the nation especially in the creation of job opportunities also the generation of revenue. Unfortunately, Oil thefts have become the idea that replaced the most crisis and agitations in the Niger Delta communities against the perceived neglect of the areas. This had resulted to widespread operation of illegal oil bunkering activities called Kpofire. Kpofire, as described by the Niger deltans, is a process of burning crude oil by illegal oil operatives or thieves at isolated locations called bunkering sites or dumpsites in order to extract refined petroleum products. The design for the extraction of the petroleum products involves the sections of steaming and collection. These sections are connected by a very long pipe. Heat is applied to the steaming section using wood from the mangroves that is called ‘Ngala’ or ‘Agala’, thereafter, crude oil is used. The products extracted are fuel, kerosene and diesel. One of the major problems of Kpofire is the introduction of soot into the environment. Soot is a product is uncontrolled and incomplete combustion or pyrolisis of materials that contain carbon. The highest constituent of soot is the Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). The Niger Delta people are faced with daily environmental challenges such as inadequate housing facilities, contaminated drinking water sources, barren lands for agriculture, dead rivers for fishing activities and poor health conditions, soot, which has become a gradual but huge challenge in many Niger Delta communities, has been shown to play a huge role in respiratory, skin, and reproductive health conditions. However, vulnerability is seen more in babies and children (particularly because their respiratory organs are not matured enough), the elderly, and people with preexisting health conditions, also heart or lung diseases (such as asthma). High exposure to PAH at prenatal stages is linked to a low IQ and lead to increased behavioral problems in the early-age child and childhood asthma. A collective effort is needed to put a stop this menace called kpofire in order to avoid environmental pollution thereby endangering the health of the people of Niger Delta.

CAMP : Conversion of Medical Mask Waste with the Addition of HDPE Plastic into Bio-Oil Using the Co-pyrolysis Method

The process of processing crude oil requires a furnace that serves as a "cooking" crude oil to a set temperature point which will then be processed further with other devices. The heating process by furnaces needs to be considered four variables, namely temperature, pressure, flow, and fluid level. To support these variables, parameters are needed that support in fulfilling the crude oil heating process. Inefficient operation of furnaces becomes the most important thing in the use of large energy. Increased efficiency is the best option so that energy use can be minimized. This research aims to find out the optimization of furnace debutanizer reboiler by using system dynamics method. The data needed in the study are supporting parameters such as excess water, fuel flow, fuel pressure, fuel temperature, and fuel gas temperature. The data is known to be related to each other and reciprocity by using the help of causal loop diagrams. If the concept has been in accordance with the causal loop diagram that has been created then perform the implementation on the flow diagram. To run simulations with system dynamics methods, equation mathematics is required. The output of the system dynamics simulation is a graph to perform the analysis. The results of this study found that fuel needs increase by 500 kg for one month. The increase was caused by excess water levels reaching 1.5%. While excess water is caused by the loss of oxygen levels in the furnace during the heating process by 0.33%. Therefore, the percentage of furnace optimization does not reach the maximum limit of 87.35%. In order for furnace optimization to be within the optimum limit, there needs to be a hold of oxygen levels in the furnace. By holding oxygen levels, the temperature in the furnace is stable. Keywords: System Dynamics, Simulation, Optimization

FUEL OPTIMIZATION ON FURNACE DEBUTANIZER REBOILER USING SYSTEM DYNAMICS MODELLING METHOD

The process of processing crude oil requires a furnace that serves as a "cooking" crude oil to a set temperature point which will then be processed further with other devices. The heating process by furnaces needs to be considered four variables, namely temperature, pressure, flow, and fluid level. To support these variables, parameters are needed that support in fulfilling the crude oil heating process. Inefficient operation of furnaces becomes the most important thing in the use of large energy. Increased efficiency is the best option so that energy use can be minimized. This research aims to find out the optimization of furnace debutanizer reboiler by using system dynamics method. The data needed in the study are supporting parameters such as excess water, fuel flow, fuel pressure, fuel temperature, and fuel gas temperature. The data is known to be related to each other and reciprocity by using the help of causal loop diagrams. If the concept has been in accordance with the causal loop diagram that has been created then perform the implementation on the flow diagram. To run simulations with system dynamics methods, equation mathematics is required. The output of the system dynamics simulation is a graph to perform the analysis. The results of this study found that fuel needs increase by 500 kg for one month. The increase was caused by excess water levels reaching 1.5%. While excess water is caused by the loss of oxygen levels in the furnace during the heating process by 0.33%. Therefore, the percentage of furnace optimization does not reach the maximum limit of 87.35%. In order for furnace optimization to be within the optimum limit, there needs to be a hold of oxygen levels in the furnace. By holding oxygen levels, the temperature in the furnace is stable. Keywords: System Dynamics, Simulation, Optimization

Effect of ionic liquids in the dispersion of a Mexican heavy crude oil

The oil industry consists of a great diversity of stages such as the extraction, storage, transportation, and processing of crude oil. In particular, oil storage turns out to be an area of interest for research because this specific stage is complicated when heavy oils are treated. Thus, materials of the ionic liquid type have been used as modulators of the stability of water-oil emulsions to control these phenomena. This work monitored the stability of a Mexican heavy oil emulsified with sodium hydroxide and 200 ppm of imidazole-based-ionic liquids (ILs) for 55 days. The speed of particle migration and the emulsion stability was influenced in most cases by the alkyl chain length of the ILs; as the chain length increased, a rapid decrease was observed. The best results were obtained with the ILs 1-dodecyl 3-hexadecyl imidazole bromide and 1-tetradecyl 3-hexadecyl imidazole bromide, reaching a migration speed of 1.56 × 10−5 and 1.78 × 10−5 mm·min−1.

Experimental Splitting of Hydrogen Sulfide by Halogens for Application in Reaction Cycles

AbstractHydrogen sulfide is a toxic gas that is almost always present in the processing of crude oil or natural gas and must be removed. In addition, hydrogen can be used as an energy carrier if it can be separated from H2S. In this work, as the first step of a reaction cycle that could achieve just that, the bromination and chlorination of hydrogen sulfide are experimentally studied. It can be shown that both halogens are capable of completely converting hydrogen sulfide in a gas phase reaction. While the chlorination can produce byproducts, the bromination is free of such.

Using Amides Demulsifiers for Crude Oil Processing

Using Amides Demulsifiers for Crude Oil Processing

Oxidation of heavy crude oils under reservoir conditions: Influence of catalysts and the gas phase

In this work the influence of catalysts on in situ combustion process of heavy crude oil has been studied. The heavy crude oil from Russia (Ashal'cha field) oil field was used. The research on oxidation was performed using accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC). The effect of type of metal oxide (NiO, Co3O4, Fe3O4) on catalytic oxidation process of crude oil at conditions close to reservoir's pressure and temperature was investigated. The impact of catalyst particle size on oxidation process of crude oil has been revealed. The composition of gas mixture has been shown to alter the activity of the catalyst in oxidation process. The correlation between type of catalyst as well as the composition of gas phase and kinetic parameters of reaction was found. Arrhenius kinetic parameters were derived from experimental data of crude oil oxidation.