Handbook Of Petroleum Refining Processes Fourth Edition

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Petroleumrefining involves refining crude petroleum as well as producing raw materials for the petrochemical industry. This book covers current refinery processes and process-types that are likely to come on-stream during the next three to five decades. The book includes (1) comparisons of conventional feedstocks with heavy oil, tar sand bitumen, and bio-feedstocks; (2) properties and refinability of the various feedstocks; (3) thermal processes versus hydroprocesses; and (4) the influence of refining on the environment.

Feedstock Properties. Refining Processes. Refining Chemistry. Distillation. Thermal Cracking. Catalytic Cracking. Deasphalting and Dewaxing Processes. Hydrotreating and Desulfurization. Hydrocracking. Corrosion in Refineries. Refining and the Environment. Conversion Factors. Glossary Page. Index.

Dr. James G. Speight is a consultant, author, and lecturer on energy and environmental issues at CD & W Inc., Laramie, Wyoming, USA. He previously served as CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at the Western Research Institute.

". . . there is little omitted that one would need to know about petroleum refining, from crude oil itself through LNG to bitumen. . . this one I can totally praise and recommend to anyone wishing to know more about the oil industry."

Refining is a key element of the energy industry. We use gasoline and diesel for transport, not crude oil. The evolution of the refining industry from a simple process to manufacture kerosene the key product at the end of the nineteenth century to a very sophisticated process to deliver high-quality products for sophisticated engines now is impressive. Less demand in Europe, more demand in Asia has deeply changed the structure of the industry with closures of facilities in Europe and development of large, sophisticated plants in the Middle East and Asia. The economics of refining for long very poor are improving with the adaptation of the industry.

Refining is a key step in the oil industry, as we do not directly consume crude oil. A petroleum refinery is a set of installations intended to transform crude oil, generally unusable as such, into petroleum products: motor gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, fuel oil, lubricants, liquefied petroleum gases, naphtha, and so on.

There are probably more than 400 different crude oils in the world. While the annual production of Arabian Light, a crude oil extracted mainly from the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, exceeds 250 million tons per year (Ghawar, from where it is produced, originally contained more than 10 billion tons of crude oil), many crude oils are produced in very small quantities. Only about a hundred crude oils are traded on a significant international scale.

So many deposits, so many raw materials. Each crude oil is characterized in particular by its density, which is commonly measured in American Petroleum Institute (API) degrees.Footnote 1 The current crudes have a density between 0.8 (about 45 API) and 1 (10 API). A light, low-density crude oil will produce relatively high levels of gasoline and diesel fuel and low levels of fuel oil. On the other hand, a heavy crude oil will give a lot of heavy fuel oil.

the process units where oil is separated into fractions or cuts; some cuts undergo additional processing for improvement in order to reach commercial requirements; heavy fractions can be converted into light fractions,

However, the modern history of the oil industry is said to have begun with the production of kerosene for illumination. For many years, the use of lamp oil (mostly whale oil) was the best way to illuminate a room, until the whale population decreased rapidly. In 1846, Abraham Gessner of Nova Scotia, Canada, developed a process to produce kerosene from coal. Shortly afterwards, in 1854, Ignacy Łukasiewicz began producing kerosene from hand-dug oil wells in Poland.

From a technical point of view, the refining industry really began in 1863 with the construction of the first distillation unit in Boston, USA. Certainly, this unit has nothing to do with the refineries we know today. Still, it made possible to extract from crude oil the kerosene or lamp oil consumed at the time. The development of electricity by Thomas Edison introduced a competitor to kerosene, but the development of electricity consumption was very slow. Shortly afterwards, the appearance of the automobile led to an increase in the consumption of petrol and diesel. Then fuel oil found an outlet in the navy, just before the First World War.

More distillation units, but also more so-called secondary treatment units were built. First of all, thermal reforming was developed to increase the production of gasoline. Then came thermal cracking to reduce the production of heavy fuel oil and increase the production of light products, especially gasoline and diesel. Finally, after Second World War, catalytic reforming was introduced to improve the quality of gasoline. Many other processes developed in parallel, but the refining industry can now be considered a mature industry.

Rockefeller initially focused on crude oil processing and product distribution operations, leaving oil production, which he considered too risky, to other players. But gradually, within the major oil companies, refining has become integrated with oil exploration and production on the one hand, and distribution on the other. Integration provides the company with its sources of crude oil and its outlets, thus promoting the smooth physical operation of the oil chain. Gradually, however, and in particular because of nationalization of the oil fields in several counties in the 1970s (Algeria, Libya, Iraq first, Venezuela, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia some years later), international companies became mainly refining and distribution companies, with crude oil production being largely in the hands of the national companies of producing countries. This trend has been partially reversed: some producing countries opened their oil exploration and production in order to attract the large international oil companies (the Majors), which can bring expertise and financing. Very often this has been carried out through associations (joint ventures) between the national oil company and the foreign companies.

On the other hand, some OPEC countries now play a key role in refining. The countries of the Persian Arab Gulf and Venezuela have developed significant capacities, which are largely export-oriented. For strategic reasons, some of them (Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) have also taken control of important capacities abroad (especially in the United States).

Refining capacity, measured by atmospheric distillation capacity, increased from just over 1 billion tons per year in 1950 to over 4 billion tons per year in 1980. It declined to less than 3.60 billion tons in 1985, following the second oil crisis. After the fall in oil prices in 1986, capacity increased again and is currently of the order of 5 billion tons per year, or 100 million barrels per day.

Central and South America is well equipped with refineries, with Brazil and Venezuela having the largest capacities. Large-scale refineries are located in the Caribbean and Venezuela: they are often export-oriented and the United States is a privileged market for refineries in this sub-region. However, it should be stressed that at the time of writing US sanctions on Venezuela are impacting the refining industry there.

The Middle East is also an important refining center with several large refineries for export, particularly to Asia. The largest exporters are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi. The strong growth in demand, driven by economic growth and rather low product prices, requires a rapid increase in capacity. In addition, large new refineries have recently been built in Saudi Arabia, for example, SATORP, a 20 million tons very sophisticated refinery built by Total and Aramco. Sinopec and Aramco are building a similar refinery.

However, many of these refineries have closed more or less recently (Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo on the West Coast; Mombasa, Dar Es Salaam, and Maputo on the East Coast). These refineries are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with products that arrive in large quantities from large refineries built in the Persian Gulf or in India.

In total, there are currently approximately 700 refineries worldwide with a total processing capacity of approximately 100 million barrels per day. The average capacity of a refinery is therefore around 150,000 b/d or nearly 8 Mt./year.

The Jamnagar refinery is the largest oil refinery in the world since 2008, with a processing capacity of 1.24 million barrels per day (more than 60 million tons per year, almost equivalent to the capacity of a major European country!). Located in Gujarat, India, it is owned by Reliance Industries.

Among other very large facilities, we find the Paraguana refinery in Venezuela, which is the result of the merger of the Amuay and Cardon refineries (pipe connections have been established between the two refineries). Its capacity totals 980,000 barrels per day. There are also the South Korean refineries in Ulsan (two refineries) and Yeosu, whose combined size exceeds 2 million barrels per day. Other very large refineries are found in Saudi Arabia and the United States.

On the other hand, there also are small refineries adapted to small and isolated markets. Inland countries (Mali, Niger, Chad, Uganda, Rwanda, and so on) are very difficult to supply with finished products from the African coast, which can be more than a thousand kilometers away. In Chad and Niger, which have domestic oil resources, two similar 20,000 barrel per day refineries were built by Chinese companies just after 2010.

As we have seen, the strong growth in the consumption of oil (and therefore petroleum products) dates back to the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the switch from coal to liquid fuels led to an impressive increase in demand for heavy fuel oil and heating oil. Until the early 1970s, a simple refinery (composed of Distillation + Catalytic Reforming + Desulfurization Units), which processed a medium crude oil of the Arabian Light type, was perfectly adapted to demand, producing 40 to 50% heavy fuel oil, used in the industry and for electricity production, in line with the demand.

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