Hydrocarbon production

Carbonate rocks are more frequently fractured than sandstones. In many cases open fractures in carbonate reservoirs provide high porosity / high permeability path ways for hydrocarbon production. The fractures will be continuously re-charged from the tight (low permeable) rock matrix. During field development, wells need to be planned to intersect as many natural fractures as possible, e.g. by drilling horizontal wells. 

If compaction occurs as a result of production careful monitoring is required. The Ekofisk Field in the Norwegian North Sea made headlines when, as a result of hydrocarbon production, the pores of the fine-grained carbonate reservoir collapsed and the platforms on the seabed started to sink. The situation was later remedied by inserting steel sections into the platform legs. Compaction effects are also an issue in the Groningen gas field in Holland where subsidence in the order of one meter is expected at the surface. 

A container full of hydrocarbons can be described in a number of ways, from a simple measurement of the dimensions of the container to a detailed compositional analysis. The most appropriate method is usually determined by what you want to do with the hydrocarbons. If for example hydrocarbon products are stored in a warehouse prior to sale the dimensions of the container are very important, and the hydrocarbon quality may be completely irrelevant for the store keeper. However, a process engineer calculating yields of oil and gas from a reservoir oil sample will require a detailed breakdown of hydrocarbon composition, i.e. what components are present and in what quantities. 

In Section 13.2, it was suggested that opex is estimated at the development planning stage based upon a percentage of cumulafive capex (fixed opex) plus a cosf per barrel of hydrocarbon production (variable opex). This method has been widely applied, with the percentages and cost per barrel values based on previous experience in the area. One obvious flaw in this method is that as oil production declines, so does the estimate of opex, which is nof the common experience as equipment ages it requires more maintenance and breaks down more frequently. 

Alkylation combines lower-molecular-weight saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons (alkanes and alkenes) to produce high-octane gasoline and other hydrocarbon products. Conventional paraffin-olefin (alkane-alkene) alkylation is an acid-catalyzed reaction, such as combining isobutylene and isobutane to isooctane. 

For my part, although I may be somewhat of a visionary, I see a solution to the problem by chemical recycling of excess carbon dioxide emissions into methyl alcohol and derived hydrocarbon products. 

Hydrogenolysis Process. Patty alcohols are produced by hydrogenolysis of methyl esters or fatty acids ia the presence of a heterogeneous catalyst at 20,700—31,000 kPa (3000—4500 psi) and 250—300°C ia conversions of 90—98%. A higher conversion can be achieved using more rigorous reaction conditions, but it is accompanied by a significant amount of hydrocarbon production. 

Hydrocarbon resources can be classified as organic materials which are either mobile such as cmde oil or natural gas, or immobile materials including coal, lignite, oil shales, and tar sands. Most hydrocarbon resources occur as immobile organic materials which have a low hydrogen-to-carbon ratio. However, most hydrocarbon products in demand have a H C higher than 1.0. 

Hydrogen Chloride as By-Product from Chemical Processes. Over 90% of the hydrogen chloride produced in the United States is a by-product from various chemical processes. The cmde HCl generated in these processes is generally contaminated with impurities such as unreacted chlorine, organics, chlorinated organics, and entrained catalyst particles. A wide variety of techniques are employed to treat these HCl streams to obtain either anhydrous HCl or hydrochloric acid. Some of the processes in which HCl is produced as a by-product are the manufacture of chlorofluorohydrocarbons, manufacture of aUphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, production of high surface area siUca (qv), and the manufacture of phosphoric acid [7664-38-2] and esters of phosphoric acid (see Phosphoric acid and phosphates). 

Rubbers. Plasticizers have been used in mbber processing and formulations for many years (8), although phthaHc and adipic esters have found Htde use since cheaper alternatives, eg, heavy petroleum oils, coal tars, and other predominandy hydrocarbon products, are available for many types of mbber. Esters, eg, DOA, DOP, and DOS, can be used with latex mbber to produce large reductions in T. It has been noted (9) that the more polar elastomers such as nitrile mbber and chloroprene are insufficiendy compatible with hydrocarbons and requite a more specialized type of plasticizer, eg, a phthalate or adipate ester. Approximately 50% of nitrile mbber used in Western Europe is plasticized at 10—15 phr (a total of 5000—6000 t/yr), and 25% of chloroprene at ca 10 phr (ca 2000 t/yr) is plasticized. Usage in other elastomers is very low although may increase due to toxicological concerns over polynuclear aromatic compounds (9). 

Process Raw Material. Industrial solvents are raw materials in some production processes. Eor example, only a small proportion of acetone is used as a solvent, most is used in producing methyl methacrylate and bisphenol A. Alcohols are used in the manufacture of esters and glycol ethers. Diethylenetriamine is also used in the manufacture of curing agents for epoxy resins. Traditionally, chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents have been the starting materials for duorinated hydrocarbon production. 

The principal advance ia technology for SASOL I relative to the German Fischer-Tropsch plants was the development of a fluidized-bed reactor/regenerator system designed by M. W. Kellogg for the synthesis reaction. The reactor consists of an entrained-flow reactor ia series with a fluidized-bed regenerator (Fig. 14). Each fluidized-bed reactor processes 80,000 m /h of feed at a temperature of 320 to 330°C and 2.2 MPa (22 atm), and produces approximately 300 m (2000 barrels) per day of Hquid hydrocarbon product with a catalyst circulation rate of over 6000 t/h (49). 

The dephlegmator process recovers a substantially higher purity C2+ hydrocarbon product with 50—75% lower methane content than the conventional partial condensation process. The C2+ product from the cryogenic separation process can be compressed and further separated in a de-ethanizer column to provide a high purity C3+ (LPG) product and a mixed ethylene—ethane product with 10—15% methane. Additional refrigeration for the deethanization process can be provided by a package Freon, propane or propylene refrigeration system. 

Voltages are extremely high hundreds of thousands of volts are common. Currents, however, are usually less than one-millionth of an ampere. It is due to the extremely high resistivity of hydrocarbon products. This resistivity varies from 10" to 10 ohm-cm. 

Pipe Line Charge Generation. The problem of electrical charges produced by flowing hydrocarbon products in pipe lines was studied by many investigators. 

The delayed coking feed stream of residual oils from various upstream processes is first introduced to a fractionating tower where residual lighter materials are drawn off and the heavy ends are condensed. The heavy ends are removed and heated in a furnace to about 900 to 1,000 F and then fed to an insulated vessel called a coke drum where the coke is formed. When the coke drum is filled with product, the feed is switched to an empty parallel drum. Hot vapors from the coke drums, containing cracked lighter hydrocarbon products, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia, are fed back to the fractionator where they can be treated in the sour gas treatment system or drawn off as intermediate products. 

The spent catalyst is withdrawn from the bottom of the reactor and stripped with steam to vaporize the hydrocarbons remaining on the surface. Stripping also removes most of the hydrocarbon vapors which are entrained between the particles of catalyst. Without stripping, hydrocarbon products would be carried to the regenerator and needlessly burned consuming much of the regeneration air, and decreasing yield of useful products. 

A refinery separates the many types of hydrocarbons present in cmde oils into related fractions of chemically converted, separated hydrocarbon products, and recovers the wastes that are produced. 

The separation processes separate the constituents of crude-oil based on physical proper Conversion of one molecule into another greatly extends the usefulness of petroleum by extending [hi ige of hydrocarbon products. 

Volume of olefin/(volume of ionic liquid.hour). i-C = 2,2- and 2,3-dimethylbutanes, i-Cg = isooctanes, TMP trimethylpentanes, = hydrocarbon products with more than eight carbon atoms, Light ends = hydrocarbon products with fewer than eight carbon atoms, RON = research octane number, MON = motor octane number... 

A deep stratigraphic test is drilled to obtain information about a specific geological condition that might lead to the discovery of an accumulation of hydrocarbons. Such wells are customarily drilled without the intention of being completed for hydrocarbon production. This classification also includes tests identified as core tests and all types of expendable holes related to hydrocarbon exploration. 

The ratio of hydrocarbon products, 1-hexane and methylcyclopentane, was determined. These data, obtained by varying the concentrations of chromium(II), could be used to evaluate fco11 The equation is... 

In dibenzothiophene-S,S-dioxide the S atom is in a ring, and hence more constrained. The yield of SOz in the radiolysis is linear with the dose to about 13 Mrad after which it levels off as in p,p -ditolyI sulfone. However, the yield of S02 in this case is much lower (a factor of 25) than in the case of p,p -ditolyl sulfone (G = 0.002 compared to G = 0.05). This stability of the dibenzothiophene sulfone could be partially due to back reaction to reform the parent sulfone and partially due to more efficient energy delocalization. The expected biphenylene product was not detected due to limitations of the analytical method. Bowmer and O Donnell70 studied the volatile products in y-radiolysis of dialkyl, alkyl aryl and diaryl sulfones. Table 2 gives the radiolytic yields of S02 and of the hydrocarbon products of the alkyl or aryl radicals. The hydrocarbon products are those obtained either by H atom abstraction or by radical combination. The authors69 suggested the mechanism... 

To confirm these predictions we examine here in some detail only the case of hydrocarbon production where alkali promoters play an important role in industrial practice. 

It is obvious that one can use the basic ideas concerning the effect of alkali promoters on hydrogen and CO chemisorption (section 2.5.1) to explain their effect on the catalytic activity and selectivity of the CO hydrogenation reaction. For typical methanation catalysts, such as Ni, where the selectivity to CH4 can be as high as 95% or higher (at 500 to 550 K), the modification of the catalyst by alkali metals increases the rate of heavier hydrocarbon production and decreases the rate of methane formation.128 Promotion in this way makes the alkali promoted nickel surface to behave like an unpromoted iron surface for this catalytic action. The same behavior has been observed in model studies of the methanation reaction on Ni single crystals.129... 

In all experiments, unless otherwise stated, approximately 5% oxygen was added to the reaction mixture to remove free radicals from the system and thereby simplify the derivation of the modes of formation of the hydrocarbon products. 

Field and Lampe (23) established the occurrence of the hydride transfer reaction in the gas phase in 1958 by detecting secondary ions of mass one unit lower than the parent compound. Subsequently, Futrell (24, 25) attempted to account for most lower hydrocarbon products formed in the radiolysis of hexane and pentane by assuming that hydride transfer reactions play a dominant role in radiolysis. More recently, Ausloos and Lias (2) presented experimental evidence which indicated that some of the products in the radiolysis of propane are, in... 

On the other hand, the formation of ethylene was ascribed mainly to the unimolecular decomposition of a neutral excited propane molecule. These interpretations were later confirmed (4) by examining the effect of an applied electrical field on the neutral products in the radiolysis of propane. The yields of those products which were originally ascribed to ion-molecule reactions remained unchanged when the field strength was increased in the saturation current region while the yields of hydrocarbon products, which were ascribed to the decomposition of neutral excited propane molecules, increased several fold because of increased excitation by electron impact. In various recent radiolysis 14,17,18,34) and photoionization studies 26) of hydrocarbons, the origins of products from ion-molecule reactions or neutral excited molecule decompositions have been determined using the applied field technique. However, because of recent advances in vacuum ultraviolet photolysis and ion-molecule reaction kinetics, the technique used in the above studies has become somewhat superfluous. 

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