Oil refining market will witness an appreciable growth because of rapid industrialization and economic transformation. Changing demographics, growing population and improvement in living standards across developing nations are some of factors positively influencing the industry landscape. In the 19th century, refineries in the U. There was no market for the more volatile fraction, including gasoline, which was considered waste and was often dumped directly into the nearest river.
The invention of the automobile shifted the demand to gasoline and diesel, which remain the primary refined products today. Today, national and state legislation require refineries to meet stringent air and water cleanliness standards. In fact, oil companies in the U. In the earliest data provided , the United States operated refineries with a combined capacity of In , there were operable U. Indeed, in order to reduce operating costs and depreciation, refining is operated in fewer sites but of bigger capacity. In through , as revenue streams in the oil business dried up and profitability of oil refineries fell due to lower demand for product and high reserves of supply preceding the economic recession , oil companies began to close or sell the less profitable refineries.
Raw or unprocessed crude oil is not generally useful in industrial applications, although "light, sweet" low viscosity, low sulfur crude oil has been used directly as a burner fuel to produce steam for the propulsion of seagoing vessels. The lighter elements, however, form explosive vapors in the fuel tanks and are therefore hazardous, especially in warships. Instead, the hundreds of different hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil are separated in a refinery into components which can be used as fuels , lubricants , and as feedstocks in petrochemical processes that manufacture such products as plastics , detergents , solvents , elastomers and fibers such as nylon and polyesters.
Petroleum fossil fuels are burned in internal combustion engines to provide power for ships , automobiles , aircraft engines , lawn mowers , dirt bikes , and other machines. Different boiling points allow the hydrocarbons to be separated by distillation. Since the lighter liquid products are in great demand for use in internal combustion engines, a modern refinery will convert heavy hydrocarbons and lighter gaseous elements into these higher value products.
Oil can be used in a variety of ways because it contains hydrocarbons of varying molecular masses , forms and lengths such as paraffins , aromatics , naphthenes or cycloalkanes , alkenes , dienes , and alkynes.
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While the molecules in crude oil include different atoms such as sulfur and nitrogen, the hydrocarbons are the most common form of molecules, which are molecules of varying lengths and complexity made of hydrogen and carbon atoms , and a small number of oxygen atoms. The differences in the structure of these molecules account for their varying physical and chemical properties , and it is this variety that makes crude oil useful in a broad range of several applications. Once separated and purified of any contaminants and impurities, the fuel or lubricant can be sold without further processing.
Smaller molecules such as isobutane and propylene or butylenes can be recombined to meet specific octane requirements by processes such as alkylation , or more commonly, dimerization. The octane grade of gasoline can also be improved by catalytic reforming , which involves removing hydrogen from hydrocarbons producing compounds with higher octane ratings such as aromatics. Intermediate products such as gasoils can even be reprocessed to break a heavy, long-chained oil into a lighter short-chained one, by various forms of cracking such as fluid catalytic cracking , thermal cracking , and hydrocracking.
The final step in gasoline production is the blending of fuels with different octane ratings, vapor pressures , and other properties to meet product specifications. Another method for reprocessing and upgrading these intermediate products residual oils uses a devolatilization [ permanent dead link ] process to separate usable oil from the waste asphaltene material. Oil refineries are large scale plants, processing about a hundred thousand to several hundred thousand barrels of crude oil a day. Because of the high capacity, many of the units operate continuously , as opposed to processing in batches , at steady state or nearly steady state for months to years.
The high capacity also makes process optimization and advanced process control very desirable. Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil petroleum as it is processed in oil refineries. The majority of petroleum is converted to petroleum products, which includes several classes of fuels.
Oil refineries also produce various intermediate products such as hydrogen , light hydrocarbons, reformate and pyrolysis gasoline. These are not usually transported but instead are blended or processed further on-site. Chemical plants are thus often adjacent to oil refineries or a number of further chemical processes are integrated into it. For example, light hydrocarbons are steam-cracked in an ethylene plant, and the produced ethylene is polymerized to produce polyethene. Because technical reasons and environment protection demand a very low sulfur content in all but the heaviest products, it is transformed to hydrogen sulfide via catalytic hydrodesulfurization and removed from the product stream via amine gas treating.
Using the Claus process , hydrogen sulfide is afterwards transformed to elementary sulfur to be sold to the chemical industry. The rather large heat energy freed by this process is directly used in the other parts of the refinery. Often an electrical power plant is combined into the whole refinery process to take up the excess heat. According to the composition of the crude oil and depending on the demands of the market, refineries can produce different shares of petroleum products.
The largest share of oil products is used as "energy carriers", i. These fuels include or can be blended to give gasoline, jet fuel , diesel fuel , heating oil , and heavier fuel oils. Heavier less volatile fractions can also be used to produce asphalt , tar , paraffin wax , lubricating and other heavy oils. Refineries also produce other chemicals , some of which are used in chemical processes to produce plastics and other useful materials. Since petroleum often contains a few percent sulfur -containing molecules, elemental sulfur is also often produced as a petroleum product.
Carbon , in the form of petroleum coke , and hydrogen may also be produced as petroleum products. The hydrogen produced is often used as an intermediate product for other oil refinery processes such as hydrocracking and hydrodesulfurization. Petroleum products are usually grouped into four categories: These require blending various feedstocks, mixing appropriate additives, providing short term storage, and preparation for bulk loading to trucks, barges, product ships, and railcars.
This classification is based on the way crude oil is distilled and separated into fractions. Over 6, items are made from petroleum waste by-products including: See link to partial list of by-products listed by Ranken Energy [25].
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Sample of Crude oil petroleum. Cylinders of Liquified petroleum gas. Pile of asphalt -covered aggregate for formation into asphalt concrete. The image below is a schematic flow diagram of a typical oil refinery [30] that depicts the various unit processes and the flow of intermediate product streams that occurs between the inlet crude oil feedstock and the final end products. The diagram depicts only one of the literally hundreds of different oil refinery configurations. The diagram also does not include any of the usual refinery facilities providing utilities such as steam, cooling water, and electric power as well as storage tanks for crude oil feedstock and for intermediate products and end products.
There are many process configurations other than that depicted above. For example, the vacuum distillation unit may also produce fractions that can be refined into end products such as: The crude oil distillation unit CDU is the first processing unit in virtually all petroleum refineries. The CDU distills the incoming crude oil into various fractions of different boiling ranges, each of which are then processed further in the other refinery processing units.
The CDU is often referred to as the atmospheric distillation unit because it operates at slightly above atmospheric pressure. Below is a schematic flow diagram of a typical crude oil distillation unit. The incoming crude oil is preheated by exchanging heat with some of the hot, distilled fractions and other streams. It is then desalted to remove inorganic salts primarily sodium chloride. Following the desalter, the crude oil is further heated by exchanging heat with some of the hot, distilled fractions and other streams.
The cooling and condensing of the distillation tower overhead is provided partially by exchanging heat with the incoming crude oil and partially by either an air-cooled or water-cooled condenser. Additional heat is removed from the distillation column by a pumparound system as shown in the diagram below. As shown in the flow diagram, the overhead distillate fraction from the distillation column is naphtha.
The fractions removed from the side of the distillation column at various points between the column top and bottom are called sidecuts.
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Each of the sidecuts i. All of the fractions i. A party searching for a site to construct a refinery or a chemical plant needs to consider the following issues:.
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Refineries which use a large amount of steam and cooling water need to have an abundant source of water. Oil refineries therefore are often located nearby navigable rivers or on a sea shore, nearby a port. Such location also gives access to transportation by river or by sea.
The advantages of transporting crude oil by pipeline are evident, and oil companies often transport a large volume of fuel to distribution terminals by pipeline. Pipeline may not be practical for products with small output, and rail cars, road tankers, and barges are used.
Petrochemical plants and solvent manufacturing fine fractionating plants need spaces for further processing of a large volume of refinery products for further processing, or to mix chemical additives with a product at source rather than at blending terminals. The refining process releases a number of different chemicals into the atmosphere see AP 42 Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors and a notable odor normally accompanies the presence of a refinery.
Aside from air pollution impacts there are also wastewater concerns, [29] risks of industrial accidents such as fire and explosion, and noise health effects due to industrial noise. Many governments worldwide have mandated restrictions on contaminants that refineries release, and most refineries have installed the equipment needed to comply with the requirements of the pertinent environmental protection regulatory agencies.
In the United States, there is strong pressure to prevent the development of new refineries, and no major refinery has been built in the country since Marathon's Garyville, Louisiana facility in However, many existing refineries have been expanded during that time. Environmental restrictions and pressure to prevent construction of new refineries may have also contributed to rising fuel prices in the United States. Environmental and safety concerns mean that oil refineries are sometimes located some distance away from major urban areas.
Nevertheless, there are many instances where refinery operations are close to populated areas and pose health risks. In California's Contra Costa County and Solano County , a shoreline necklace of refineries, built in the early 20th century before this area was populated, and associated chemical plants are adjacent to urban areas in Richmond , Martinez , Pacheco , Concord , Pittsburg , Vallejo and Benicia , with occasional accidental events that require " shelter in place " orders to the adjacent populations.
A number of refineries are located in Sherwood Park, Alberta , directly adjacent to the City of Edmonton. The Edmonton metro area has a population of over 1,, residents. NIOSH criteria for occupational exposure to refined petroleum solvents have been available since Modern petroleum refining involves a complicated system of interrelated chemical reactions that produce a wide variety of petroleum-based products.
For instance, an explosion in a Chicago refinery killed 20 workers in Given the highly automated and technically advanced nature of modern petroleum refineries, nearly all processes are contained within engineering controls and represent a substantially decreased risk of exposure to workers compared to earlier times. Interestingly, even though petroleum refineries utilize and produce chemicals that are known carcinogens , the literature on cancer rates among refinery workers is mixed.
For example, benzene has been shown to have a relationship with leukemia, [70] however studies examining benzene exposure and resultant leukemia specifically in the context of oil refinery workers have come to opposing conclusions. To date, this work has shown a marginally significant link to refinery employment and mesothelioma. This study concluded that there was no excess mortality among this cohort as a result of employment [72]. This acronym stands for benzene , toluene , xylene. This is a group of common volatile organic compounds VOC's that are found in the oil refinery environment, and serve as a paradigm for more in depth discussion of occupational exposure limits, chemical exposure and surveillance among refinery workers.
The most important route of exposure for BTEX chemicals is inhalation due to the low boiling point of these chemicals. The majority of the gaseous production of BTEX occurs during tank cleaning and fuel transfer, which causes offgassing of these chemicals into the air.
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Benzene, in particular, has multiple biomarkers that can be measured to determine exposure. Benzene itself can be measured in the breath, blood, and urine, and metabolites such as phenol , t , t -muconic acid t , t MA and S-phenylmercapturic acid s PMA can be measured in urine. Required testing includes complete blood count with cell differentials and peripheral blood smear "on a regular basis". Workers are at risk of physical injuries due to the large number of high-powered machines in the relatively close proximity of the oil refinery. The high pressure required for many of the chemical reactions also presents the possibility of localized system failures resulting in blunt or penetrating trauma from exploding system components.
The temperature required for the proper progression of certain reactions in the refining process can reach degrees F. Refineries can be very loud environments, and have previously been shown to be associated with hearing loss among workers. The theory of hierarchy of controls can be applied to petroleum refineries and their efforts to ensure worker safety. This is unlikely in petroleum refineries, as many of the raw materials, waste products, and finished products are hazardous in one form or another e. Careful planning and oversight of the refinery cleaning, maintenance, and turnaround processes.
These occur when many of the engineering controls are shut down or suppressed, and may be especially dangerous to workers. Detailed coordination is necessary to ensure that maintenance of one part of the facility will not cause dangerous exposures to those performing the maintenance, or to workers in other areas of the plant. Due to the highly flammable nature of many of the involved chemical, smoking areas are tightly controlled and carefully placed. Depending on the specific chemical being processed or produced, personal protective equipment may be necessary. Particular care is needed during sampling of the partially-completed product, tank cleaning, and other high-risk tasks as mentioned above.
Such activities may require the use of impervious outer wear, acid hood, disposable coveralls, etc. Looks like you are currently in Russia but have requested a page in the United States site. Would you like to change to the United States site? This is a major new handbook that covers hundreds of subjects that cross numerous industry sectors; however, the handbook is heavily slanted to oil and gas environmental management, control and pollution prevention and energy efficient practices. Multi-media pollution technologies are covered: Students, technicians, practicing engineers, environmental engineers, environmental managers, chemical engineers, petroleum engineers, and environmental attorneys are all professionals who will benefit from this major new reference source.
The handbook is organized in three parts. Part A provides an extensive compilation of abbreviations and concise glossary of pollution control and engineering terminology.
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More than terms are defined. The section is intended to provide a simple look-up guide to confusing terminology used in the regulatory field, as well as industry jargon. Cross referencing between related definitions and acronyms are provided to assist the user. Part B provides physical properties and chemical safety information. This part is not intended to be exhaustive; however it does provide supplemental information that is useful to a number of the subject entries covered in the main body of the handbook. Part C is the Macropedia of Subjects.
The part is organized as alphabetical subject entries for a wide range of pollution controls, technologies, pollution prevention practices and tools, computational methods for preparing emission estimates and emission inventories and much more. More than articles have been prepared by the author, providing a concise overview of each subject, supplemented by sample calculation methods and examples where appropriate, and references.