Upgraders and refineries

A range of emulsions, foams and suspensions can be found in the manufacturing/ value-added process industries. Some examples are given in Table 12.1. Examples for related areas can be found in Tables 9.1 (environment), 10.1 (minerals), and 11.1 (petroleum). 

Schramm, L.L. (ed.) (1996) Suspensions Fundamentals and Applications in tile Petroleum Industry, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC. 

Speight, J.G. (1999) The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, 3rd edn, Marcel Dekker, New York Martinez, A.R. (1982) in The Future of Heavy Crude and Tar Sands (eds 

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Upgrading and refinery capacity While essentially all of the mined bitumen is upgraded in Alberta, the majority of in-situ production is shipped as bitumen blend with a light diluent to refineries in the United States that are suitably equipped to handle such feedstock. This historical split needs to be overcome in the future and further upgrading capacities will have to be installed in Canada, especially to reduce the need for diluents. In addition, the proposed extension of synthetic-crude-oil supply will require new refinery capacities, either in Canada or the United States. 

Flare, upgrader, and refinery smoke and soot emissions... 

LNG—consisting of ethane, propane, butane, and natural gasoline (condensate)—arrives at the plant for upgrading before it is sent to petrochemical plants and refineries as feedstock. Residue gas is sold to the interstate and intrastate pipeline network. MESA, one of the world s major crude helium producers, also delivers helium to a pipeline operated by the U.S. Bureau of Mines. 

There are four main biorefineries biosyngas-based refinery, pyrolysis-based refinery, hydrothermal upgrading-based refinery, and fermentation-based refinery. Biosyngas is a mrrltifimctional intermediate for the production of materials, chemicals, transportation fuels, power and/or heat from biomass. Figrrre 3.4 shows the gasification-based thermochemical biorefinery. 

Production Units Production units separate crude oil into different fractions or cuts, upgrade and purify some of these cuts, and convert heavy fractions to light, more useful fractions. This area also includes the utilities which provide the refinery with fuel, flaring capability, electricity, steam, cooling water, fire water, sweet water, compressed air, nitrogen, and so on, all of which are necessary for the safe operation of the refinery. 

These and other factors are incorporated into Pace s coke production model. Our original forecast indicated peak coke production in 1982 of approximately 17 million short tons, followed by a sharp decline to 1985. The predicted decline never occurred for several reasons. We believe the major reason was the production momentum that occurred following the completion of several coker projects in late 1983. Many of the projects, originally planned at a time of attractive coking economics but started up under less favorable conditions, were operated regardless of the economics. It is difficult to complete an expensive refinery upgrade and let it sit because the economics no longer justify its operation. 

Hydrogen is now used primarily to produce ammonia and methanol, and to upgrade and desulfurize petroleum products at refineries. Hydrogen is also used in the manufacture of semiconductors, in food processing, and in the production of ammonia-based fertilizers. 

Tomorrow s fuels will contain less sulfur to be compatible with the more sophisticated engine designs of new automobiles. Fuels specifications will further reduce the concentrations of gasoline compounds that are listed and/or considered to be toxic. Refiners will continue to upgrade heavier components to lighter products and refineries will continue to use innovative catalysts and processing equipment to cost-effectively manufacture fuels and petrochemical feedstocks. We have barely touched on the sophisticated engineering needed to transform a barrel of crude oil into consumable products. 

Rice L.H., Kuchar P.J. and Gosling C.D., Tutorial Upgrading Light Naphtha and Refinery Light Ends (AIChE Spring National Meeting, Houston, 1999). 

Delayed coking is a thermal cracking process used in refineries to upgrade and convert crude oil residue known as vacuum tower bottom product (i.e. the bottoms fraction from a vacuum rectification tower) into liquid and gas product streams leaving behind a solid concentrated carbon material, coke. The vacuum towers referred to are generally used to further fractionate virgin atmospheric-... 

Thermal cracking process used in refineries to upgrade and convert crude oil residue into liquid and gas product streams leaving behind a solid concentrated carbon material, coke. 

Pyrolysis and hydrogenation lead to a wide range of end-products, which then have to be further upgraded and processed, mainly in refinery units. 

The hydrogen upgrading in refineries is traditionally carried out by means of PSA and cryogenic separation processes. However, the application of membrane systems for this type of separation is rapidly growing toward the commercial level, owing to the advantages related to the low capital costs, low energy requirements, and modularity. 

In Kuwait s refineries, over 250 000 barrels of heavy residues higher in sulfur, and metals are upgraded and converted to high quality products by catalytic hydroprocessing, bringing substantial economic returns to the country. These operations generate a substantial amount of deactivated spent catalysts as solid waste every year. Currently, about 6000 tons of spent catalysts are discarded as solid wastes from Kuwait s refineries annually. This will increase further and exceed 10 000 tons/y when a fourth refinery is built to process heavy crudes and residues. 

Finally, at an oil upgrader or refinery, any emulsified water will have to be broken and separated out in order to avoid operating problems [87,170]. As with other crude oil emulsions, the presence of solid particles and film-forming components from the crude oil can make this very difficult. 

Accounts of early exploration and examination of the Athabasca deposit can be found elsewhere [3, 11-13] as can accounts of some of the early process development efforts [14-16], Commercial plants now mine oil sands and then extract bitumen using the hot water conditioning and flotation process (at production levels of over 300,000 bbl/d). The extracted bitumen is subsequently upgraded by refinery type processes to produce light, sweet crude oil. 

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