World Petroleum

The field of application for liquid chromatography in the petroleum world is vast separation of diesel fuel by chemical families, separation of distillation residues (see Tables 3.4 and 3.5), separation of polynuclear aromatics, and separation of certain basic nitrogen derivatives. Some examples are given later in this section. 

BP 2003. Statistical Review of World Energy in 2003. British Petroleum. World Wide Web Address http //www.bp.com. 

Smith, H.K. Crude Oil Qualitative and Quantitative Aspects. The Petroleum World, Information Circular 8286 U.S. Dept, of tire Interior, Bureau of Mines (1966). 

Articles and news items also appear frequently in Petroleum World and World Petroleum, the Proceedings of the American Petroleum Institute, gas journals such as LP Gas and the American Gas Association Monthly, and publications of some private companies such as Heat Engineering and the Standard Oil of California Technical Review. 

Petroleum World, monthly, with annual review issue (October). 

Hightower, C.L., "Safety first" in oil industry. Petroleum World, 31,1934,16-19. 

Convers, A. and M. Valais (1992), World refining trends and prospects. Publications of Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehra Dun. 

Heinrich, G., M. Valais, M. Passot and B. Chapotel (1991), Mutations of world refining challenge and answers . I3th World Petroleum Congress, Buenos Aires, Vol. 3, p. 189-198. 

For more than a century petroleum geologists have been looking for oil. During this period major discoveries have been made in many parts of the world. However, it is becoming increasingly likely that most of the giant fields have already been discovered and that future finds are likely to be smaller, more complex, fields. This is particularly true for mature areas like the North Sea. 

K. Sennewald, World Petroleum Congress Proceedings, 5th, 1959, Section IV, Paper 19, pp. 217—227. 

Higher aliphatic alcohols (C —C g) are produced ia a number of important industrial processes using petroleum-based raw materials. These processes are summarized in Table 1, as are the principal synthetic products and most important feedstocks (qv). Worldwide capacity for all higher alcohols was approximately 5.3 million metric tons per annum in early 1990, 90% of which was petroleum-derived. Table 2 Hsts the major higher aliphatic alcohol producers in the world in early 1990. 

Total 1991 world production of sulfur in all forms was 55.6 x 10 t. The largest proportion of this production (41.7%) was obtained by removal of sulfur compounds from petroleum and natural gas (see Sulfurremoval and recovery). Deep mining of elemental sulfur deposits by the Frasch hot water process accounted for 16.9% of world production mining of elemental deposits by other methods accounted for 5.0%. Sulfur was also produced by roasting iron pyrites (17.6%) and as a by-product of the smelting of nonferrous ores (14.0%). The remaining 4.8% was produced from unspecified sources. 

World resources of sulfur have been summarized (110,111). Sources, ie, elemental deposits, natural gas, petroleum, pyrites, and nonferrous sulfides are expected to last only to the end of the twenty-first century at the world consumption rate of 55.6 x 10 t/yr of the 1990s. However, vast additional resources of sulfur, in the form of gypsum, could provide much further extension but would require high energy consumption for processing. 

Data from the World Energy Council. Values in parentheses are from British Petroleum. ... 

Liquid Fuels via Methanol Synthesis and Conversion. Methanol is produced catalyticaHy from synthesis gas. By-products such as ethers, formates, and higher hydrocarbons are formed in side reactions and are found in the cmde methanol product. Whereas for many years methanol was produced from coal, after World War II low cost natural gas and light petroleum fractions replaced coal as the feedstock. 

The market value of natural gas Hquids is highly volatile and historically has been weakly related to the world price of cmde oil. During the 1980s, the market value of natural gas Hquids ranged from approximately 60% of the price of cmde to 73% (12). In this 10-year interval, several fluctuations occurred in the natural gas Hquid market. Because of the variabiHty of the natural gas Hquid market, the NGL recovery plants need to have flexibiHty. Natural gas Hquid products compete in the following markets ethane propane a Hquefted petroleum gas (LPG) a C-3/C-4 mix and / -butane all compete as petrochemical feedstocks. Propane and LPG are also used as industrial and domestic fuels, whereas 2-butane and natural gasoline, consisting of C-5 and heavier hydrocarbons, are used as refinery feedstocks. 

Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) operated a coal hydrogenation plant at a pressure of 20 MPa (2900 psi) and a temperature of 400—500°C to produce Hquid hydrocarbon fuel from 1935 to the outbreak of World War II. As many as 12 such plants operated in Germany during World War II to make the country less dependent on petroleum from natural sources but the process was discontinued when hostihties ceased (see Coal conversion PROCESSES,liquefaction). Currentiy the Fisher-Tropsch process is being used at the Sasol plants in South Africa to convert synthesis gas into largely ahphatic hydrocarbons at 10—20 MPa and about 400°C to supply 70% of the fuel needed for transportation. 

Hydrocarbons from petroleum (qv) are still the principal energy source for the United States as shown in Table 1. About 60% of the world s energy is supphed by gas and oil and about 27% from coal (6—8). The annual energy demand for oil in different world areas is given in Table 2. 

Petroleum and its lighter congener, natural gas, are the predominant sources of hydrocarbon raw materials, accounting for over 95% of all such materials. Assuring sources of petroleum and natural gas has become a primary goal of national poHcies all over the world, and undoubtedly was one of the principal justifications for the 1992 Gulf War. 

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