COQA - Canadian Crude Oil Quality Subcommittee Meeting
June 7, 2007- Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, Chicago, IL
Minutes of the Processing Break-out Group
Our breakout session focused on Processability and included the following people-
John Maurer, William Fucheck, John Bernickas, Nancy Delhommer, Jim McGehee, Deepak Patel, Bruce Kennedy, April Spence, Larry Kremer, Richard Drew, Maria Luiza Tristao, Ron Gillum, Clifford Mills, Pat Swafford, Ted Hoover, and Dennis Sutton - Moderator.
Our group was comprised of a good blend of personnel representing various sectors of our industry- refiners, commercial labs, chemical companies, consultants, and others.
We discussed a number of issues similar to those addressed by the Synthetics group. Of particular concern to those present were:
Crude Incompatibility- particularly asphaltenes and waxes. The incompatibility could occur both prior to and at the refinery, but was of major worry around the desalter. Many expressed the challenges that a constrained pipeline supply system poses in keeping crudes segregated, blending blends in desired ways, and knowing what all is happening prior to introduction to the desalter.
Inorganic solids- that arise from the mining operations can be problematic at the desalter and are a fouling issue.
TAN- received a fair amount of discussion. An excellent question was posed as to whether corrosion from high TAN crudes was a real or just a perceived problem. Marathon related an instance of having had a crude unit problem (diagnosed by the metallurgist as being naphthenic acid attack) at one of their refineries running almost all Canadian crude.
Challenges posed by the myriad of oilfield chemistries were mentioned as contributing to difficulties for the refiners.
Batch-to-batch variability in quality- was another factor identified as posing challenges to the optimal operation of refineries. Many expressed frustration at the problems of not knowing exactly what to expect upon receipt.
To summarize, all of our attention focused on problems prior to the crude unit.
The next step (that we didn’t get to) should be to pick 1 or 2 areas that are of high importance and decide what specific actions the COQA could do to help.
Dennis Sutton
Marathon Petroleum