A crude oil assay is the chemical evaluation of crude oil feedstocks by petroleum testing laboratories. Each crude oil type has unique molecular and chemical characteristics. No two crude oil types are identical and there are crucial differences in crude oil quality. The results of crude oil assay testing provide extensive detailed hydrocarbon analysis data for refiners, oil traders and producers. Assay data help refineries determine if a crude oil feedstock is compatible for a particular petroleum refinery or if the crude oil could cause yield, quality, production, environmental and other problems. [1]
The assay can be an inspection assay or comprehensive assay. Testing can include crude oil characterization of whole crude oils and the various boiling range fractions produced from physical or simulated distillation by various procedures. Information obtained from the petroleum assay is used for detailed refinery engineering and client marketing purposes. Feedstock assay data are an important tool in the refining process.
Gasoline or petrol is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formulated as a fuel for engines, gasoline is chemically composed of organic compounds derived from the fractional distillation of petroleum and later chemically enhanced with gasoline additives. It is a high-volume profitable product produced in crude oil refineries.
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha. Petrochemical feedstock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha. The crude oil feedstock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot at or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid products. In 2020, the total capacity of global refineries for crude oil was about 101.2 million barrels per day.
Fractional distillation is the separation of a mixture into its component parts, or fractions. Chemical compounds are separated by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the mixture will vaporize. It uses distillation to fractionate. Generally the component parts have boiling points that differ by less than 25 °C (45 °F) from each other under a pressure of one atmosphere. If the difference in boiling points is greater than 25 °C, a simple distillation is typically used.
A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.
In petrochemistry, petroleum geology and organic chemistry, cracking is the process whereby complex organic molecules such as kerogens or long-chain hydrocarbons are broken down into simpler molecules such as light hydrocarbons, by the breaking of carbon–carbon bonds in the precursors. The rate of cracking and the end products are strongly dependent on the temperature and presence of catalysts. Cracking is the breakdown of large hydrocarbons into smaller, more useful alkanes and alkenes. Simply put, hydrocarbon cracking is the process of breaking long-chain hydrocarbons into short ones. This process requires high temperatures.
Vacuum distillation or distillation under reduced pressure is a type of distillation performed under reduced pressure, which allows the purification of compounds not readily distilled at ambient pressures or simply to save time or energy. This technique separates compounds based on differences in their boiling points. This technique is used when the boiling point of the desired compound is difficult to achieve or will cause the compound to decompose. Reduced pressures decrease the boiling point of compounds. The reduction in boiling point can be calculated using a temperature-pressure nomograph using the Clausius–Clapeyron relation.
Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. Most petroleum is converted into petroleum products, which include several classes of fuels.
A chemical plant is an industrial process plant that manufactures chemicals, usually on a large scale. The general objective of a chemical plant is to create new material wealth via the chemical or biological transformation and or separation of materials. Chemical plants use specialized equipment, units, and technology in the manufacturing process. Other kinds of plants, such as polymer, pharmaceutical, food, and some beverage production facilities, power plants, oil refineries or other refineries, natural gas processing and biochemical plants, water and wastewater treatment, and pollution control equipment use many technologies that have similarities to chemical plant technology such as fluid systems and chemical reactor systems. Some would consider an oil refinery or a pharmaceutical or polymer manufacturer to be effectively a chemical plant.
Catalytic reforming is a chemical process used to convert naphthas from crude oil into liquid products called reformates, which are premium "blending stocks" for high-octane gasoline. The process converts low-octane linear hydrocarbons (paraffins) into branched alkanes (isoparaffins) and cyclic naphthenes, which are then partially dehydrogenated to produce high-octane aromatic hydrocarbons. The dehydrogenation also produces significant amounts of byproduct hydrogen gas, which is fed into other refinery processes such as hydrocracking. A side reaction is hydrogenolysis, which produces light hydrocarbons of lower value, such as methane, ethane, propane and butanes.
Petroleum coke, abbreviated coke, pet coke or petcoke, is a final carbon-rich solid material that derives from oil refining, and is one type of the group of fuels referred to as cokes. Petcoke is the coke that, in particular, derives from a final cracking process—a thermo-based chemical engineering process that splits long chain hydrocarbons of petroleum into shorter chains—that takes place in units termed coker units. Stated succinctly, coke is the "carbonization product of high-boiling hydrocarbon fractions obtained in petroleum processing ". Petcoke is also produced in the production of synthetic crude oil (syncrude) from bitumen extracted from Canada's tar sands and from Venezuela's Orinoco oil sands. In petroleum coker units, residual oils from other distillation processes used in petroleum refining are treated at a high temperature and pressure leaving the petcoke after driving off gases and volatiles, and separating off remaining light and heavy oils. These processes are termed "coking processes", and most typically employ chemical engineering plant operations for the specific process of delayed coking.
Continuous distillation, a form of distillation, is an ongoing separation in which a mixture is continuously fed into the process and separated fractions are removed continuously as output streams. Distillation is the separation or partial separation of a liquid feed mixture into components or fractions by selective boiling and condensation. The process produces at least two output fractions. These fractions include at least one volatile distillate fraction, which has boiled and been separately captured as a vapor condensed to a liquid, and practically always a bottoms fraction, which is the least volatile residue that has not been separately captured as a condensed vapor.
Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is the conversion process used in petroleum refineries to convert the high-boiling point, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum into gasoline, alkene gases, and other petroleum products. The cracking of petroleum hydrocarbons was originally done by thermal cracking, now virtually replaced by catalytic cracking, which yields greater volumes of high octane rating gasoline; and produces by-product gases, with more carbon-carbon double bonds, that are of greater economic value than the gases produced by thermal cracking.
In the upstream oil industry, a gas–oil separation plant (GOSP) is temporary or permanent facilities that separate wellhead fluids into constituent vapor (gas) and liquid components.
Natural-gas processing is a range of industrial processes designed to purify raw natural gas by removing contaminants such as solids, water, carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), mercury and higher molecular mass hydrocarbons (condensate) to produce pipeline quality dry natural gas for pipeline distribution and final use. Some of the substances which contaminate natural gas have economic value and are further processed or sold. Hydrocarbons that are liquid at ambient conditions: temperature and pressure (i.e., pentane and heavier) are called natural-gas condensate (sometimes also called natural gasoline or simply condensate).
A delayed coker is a type of coker whose process consists of heating a residual oil feed to its thermal cracking temperature in a furnace with multiple parallel passes. This cracks the heavy, long chain hydrocarbon molecules of the residual oil into coker gas oil and petroleum coke.
Reid vapor pressure (RVP) is a common measure of the volatility of gasoline and other petroleum products. It is defined as the absolute vapor pressure exerted by the vapor of the liquid and any dissolved gases/moisture at 37.8 °C (100 °F) as determined by the test method ASTM-D-323, which was first developed in 1930 and has been revised several times. The test method measures the vapor pressure of gasoline, volatile crude oil, jet fuels, naphtha, and other volatile petroleum products but is not applicable for liquefied petroleum gases. ASTM D323-15a requires that the sample be chilled to 0 to 1 degrees Celsius and then poured into the apparatus; for any material that solidifies at this temperature, this step cannot be performed. RVP is commonly reported in kilopascals (kPa) or pounds per square inch (psi) and represents volatization at atmospheric pressure because ASTM-D-323 measures the gauge pressure of the sample in a non-evacuated chamber.
Butane or n-butane is an alkane with the formula C4H10. Butane is a highly flammable, colorless, easily liquefied gas that quickly vaporizes at room temperature and pressure. The name butane comes from the root but- (from butyric acid, named after the Greek word for butter) and the suffix -ane. It was discovered in crude petroleum in 1864 by Edmund Ronalds, who was the first to describe its properties, and commercialized by Walter O. Snelling in the early 1910s.
Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.
Petroleum naphtha is an intermediate hydrocarbon liquid stream derived from the refining of crude oil with CAS-no 64742-48-9. It is most usually desulfurized and then catalytically reformed, which rearranges or restructures the hydrocarbon molecules in the naphtha as well as breaking some of the molecules into smaller molecules to produce a high-octane component of gasoline.
A separation process is a method that converts a mixture or a solution of chemical substances into two or more distinct product mixtures, a scientific process of separating two or more substances in order to obtain purity. At least one product mixture from the separation is enriched in one or more of the source mixture's constituents. In some cases, a separation may fully divide the mixture into pure constituents. Separations exploit differences in chemical properties or physical properties between the constituents of a mixture.
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