Refineries face both opportunities and challenges in processing heavy crude oils, driven by attractive price differentials but complicated by operational complexities like equipment fouling, higher energy consumption, and stringent environmental regulations. Emulsion breaking chemistries are a piece of the solution to efficiently and economically processing heavy crudes.
Following a recent New Heavy Oil demulsifier research project in its dedicated hydrocarbon processing R&D facilities, Veolia initiated an emulsion breaker review at a Gulf Coast refinery client as part of our on-going commitment to continuous improvement. The objectives were to improve crude oil dehydration, salt removal, and robustness of the program when faced with varying crude specs, while aiming to lower product usage.
A new emulsion breaker was identified using Veolia’s unique desalter simulator, which provided better dehydration performance than the incumbent product under a multitude of operating scenarios.
Figure 1. Improved performance of new emulsion breaker in comparison to two incumbent chemistries
The new Embreak product is an oil-soluble emulsion breaker designed to improve crude oil dehydration, salt removal, and effluent brine quality in electrical desalters and other oil/water separation equipment by reducing emulsion build-up at the oil/water interface especially with heavy oil crude blends.
The new product has been in use for 9 months to validate the laboratory results and allow for the evaluation of multiple operating envelopes as well as many different crude blends. Dehydration, salt removal and product usage were all monitored to assess the effectiveness of the new novel product.
Result
Excellent results were achieved during this 9-month operating period:
- BS&W improved by decreasing from 0.2% to 0.1%, representing a 50% reduction in water carry-over.
- Desalted crude salts improved from 0.9 ptb to 0.4 ptb, representing a 55% reduction in salt carry-over.
- Crude throughput increase realized due to the reduction in desalted crude water content.
- Fuel savings realized from reduced water carry-over to the crude unit furnace.
- Sodium (Na) into the vacuum resid and fed to the Delayed Coker was reduced by 12%. The contributed to increase blending potential and Delayed Coker furnace fouling reduction (not quantified into savings).
- Decrease demulsifier usage of 60% resulting in direct treatment cost reduction.
- Total annualized savings estimated at $1,260,000/year for the refinery.
Figure 2. Dehydration improvement of 50% from New EB vs incumbent
Figure 3. Desalting efficiency of 55% of New EB vs Incumbent
Figure 4. Treatment dosage reduction of 60% from new EB vs incumbent