GE Water & Process Technologies

Oil Valorization and Operational Excellence

Questions

1. Desalting
1.

Assessing rag layer thickness during desalting and control thereof is gaining attention
oflate. Can refiners quantify the value (ball park number) of such online measurement of
rag layer in a desalter in terms of cents per bbl. of crude processed?

2.

What are the experiences of refiners in measuring / predicting conductivity of crude

blend? Which method for conductivity measurement has high degree of reproducibility?

3.

Stripped sour water is invariably used as wash water in desalting process. Many a time to
strip off NH3, refiners are forced to add NaOH in sour water stripper tower, which raises the

pH of wash water and in turn impact the demulsifier (EB Emulsion breaker)
effectiveness. What limit on Malk or pH of wash water that refiners see no significant
drop in desalting or dehydration efficiency? Also, does any refiner have plan or
already have sodium removal from the wash water before injection into desalter?

4.

What is the experience of refiners using wetting agent? What is the level of removal
of filterable solids in crude with and without addition of wetting agent?

5.

What is the industry experience on brine treatment system as a whole in terms of

percentage removal of oil and associated solids (down to 5micron size) from desalter
brine? Also, does any refiner contemplate use of membrane for desalter brine
treatment? If yes, what are the key results (quality of permeate) being targeted?

6.

What are the limitations that refiners face in closing the chloride balance across CDU / VDU
close to say 98+%? What is the best location to inject NaOH to neutralize HCl arising from
hydrolysis of residual salts in desalted crude and current effectiveness of NaOH injection?

7.

GE is engaged in global benchmarking of desalting and dewatering performance. While this

will be available to GE served refineries, other refiners too could participate and raise their
performance bar. Requesting suggestions from refining community wrt the following: -

1. Add to KPIs other than: - 1. Salt & BS&W in desalted crude; 2. Oil under carry; 3. Solids
removal; 4. Treat cost (inclusive of tank farm chemicals used if any) normalized for crude
quality and country currency; 5. No of upsets specially leading to environmental concern
in d/s WWTP; 6. % water recycled; 7. Capacity utilization per grid intensity.

2. Add to Best practices other than: - 1. Round robin test precision with independent
labs on desalter input /output streams; 2. State of the art Instrumentation that
facilitates Early Event Detection (EED); 3. Model based process control; 4.
Avoidance of caustic doing if possible and location of caustic dosing; 5. Mud washing
frequency; 6. Brine treatment package; 7. Rag layer management.

3. Add to Other salient points apart from: - 1. Ability to switch chemicals (demulsifier,

reverse breaker, wetting agent, etc.) proactively for given crude mix; 2. Percentage of
desalting difficult (i.e. high risk / tight emulsion) crudes / mix; 3. Corrosion; 4. Total cost.

2. Crude oil demetallization

2.

High metal bearing crudes as well as calcium naphthenates in few types of crude do
impact refining operations. What are the measurable expectations from service /
solution providers say on the following: -

1. % Ca removal
2. Upper limit of Ca in treated waste water to facilitate processing in d/s RO unit
3. Hy. metals load on WWTP thru porphorins in oil under carry & disposal issues, if any
4. As limit on VGO fraction specially in deep cut operation with EP as high as 590deg C
5. Max treat cost in terms of cents per bbl. Of crude
61.

What is the availability of Hg and or high As bearing crudes in Asia Pacific region? If yes,
request quantify the processability (MBPSD) & list as well pain areas to get mitigated.

3. Fouling
1.

Can refiners throw more insight from the scale analysis on the initiation mechanism
of foulant is it inorganic or organic?

2.

What is the current mechanical cleaning frequency (no of exchangers per month in
CDU) and cleaning cycle (life in months between two cleaning of same exchanger in
hot section) of Crude preheat exchangers? Provide supporting data with including
the typical dosage of anti-foulant chemical injected in crude& without anti-foulant?

3.

Request refiners to rank the variables that aid in fouling (in a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as no
or nil impact and 5 as max influence on fouling) of Crude preheat exchangers
a) Na; b) Asphaltenes; c) FFT (Fluid Film Temp); d) Filterable solids; e) TAN; f) Higher salt ex
desalted crude; g) High CII (from SARA); h) Crude & KV; i) Ca salts & j) Others (specify)

4.

How do the refiners evaluate performance i.e. drop in CIT per month or cleaning
cycle improvement, etc.? Also, indicate the industry accepted s/w used for
normalizing the exchanger data prior to such evaluation.

5.

Refiners have their own best practice in designing / installing chemical injection system for
effective distribution of additive. As any maldistribution leads to under performance and or
increased dosage, in turn excessive treat cost, request refiners to narrate such case studies.

6.

With deep cut operation of VDU, it is normal to expect higher level of asphaltenes ingress into
VGO HTs and HCUs and in turn leading to filter plugging & catalyst bed fouling.
Determination of asphaltenes is time consuming and measurement in ppm level could be
error prone. As colour test is just qualitative and CCR test can be misleading, do industries
envisage any other alternative and faster method to minimize / avoid such ingress?

7.

What is the experience of anti-foulant chemicals in Visbreaker heaters? Are there any specific
considerations (metals, chemistry, etc.) in additives? Include gains with use of such
chemicals in pushing the severity of the Visbreaker within the limits of fuel oil stability.

8.

List hot spots of fouling in refinery (reboilers of stabilizer & rerun tower; reactor effluent vs.
feed exchangers in HTs; cracker bottom; etc.) needing to raise run length to say 5+yrs?

9.

List pressing HC process end fouling, if any, (e.g. Vac OH condensers wax deposits, Di-olefins

polymerization, degradation of solvent, asphalt precipitation, etc.) needing sound solution.

4. Corrosion & Asset integrity

a. Process units & Offsites

1. Most refiners use aqueous ammonia for CDU OH corrosion control along with filming
amines. Research has consistently proved that it is not the best way to mitigate OH
corrosion. Deployment of LoSalt amines (100% water soluble) can assist refiners in
arresting episodic pH variations in the OH system and in turn eliminate FeS related
fouling in d/s GASCON section and naphtha HTs. Request refiners to list expectations
along with measurement criteria to lift the turnaround cycle of OH section to 7yrs.

2.

Request refiners to list their expectations in raising the bar of nap acid crude processing
(through chemical programme) apart from increasing the TAN level of crude mix to say
1.5mgKOH/gm. Also, list the pain areas, if any, in the current processing level.

3.

A few Oil Field Chemicals have reported to cause desalter upset and in turn corrosion and
also corrosion / fouling in crude fractionation sections of kerosene, LVGO, etc. Request
refiners to share such case histories so as to facilitate suitable combating mechanism.

4.

Refiners do witness chloride related corrosion / fouling in secondary units viz. FCC,
Coker, etc. which do impact bottom line either through shutdown or slowdown of
plants. Is there any experience with refiners wrt on-line cleaning without restricting
unit intake and or operating severity? If yes, request sharing.

5.

The concept of Early event detection is picking up in oil industries to create timely alert
to O&M team and to ensure zero incident. Though process corrosion is a slow process,
the consequences can be disastrous. Requesting refiners to list top five process
corrosion areas wherein we could work together to proactively set up mitigation plans.

6.

Low point drains, T sections, stagnant pipes (between stapling), etc. have been the source of
corrosion and ultimate HC leak. Would refiners be interested in developing inferential
predictions to get time to intervene from first principle &CFD modeling for such zones?

7.

Under sea Crude and product pipelines (to & fro SPM and shore tanks of refinery /
marketing terminals) can lead to a potential fiasco from uncontrolled internal corrosion.
GE is interested in developing a marine standard for such pipelines from asset integrity
design to installation and health monitoring throughout life cycle with global best practice
inspection measures. Request inputs from refiners pertaining to: - a) Current gaps in
measurements to foretell on corrosion rate & location of significant corrosion; b)
Inspection frequency of dead ends in the subsea piping; c) No harm rating criteria for the
chemicals used to abate chloride & microbiological corrosion; d) Possibility of water
balance; e) Existing practice of assessing colonies in received / collected water; etc.

8.

Is there specification on NACE corrosion test in finished products (gasoline, diesel)

being sold in Indian market? Is this test likely to be inducted in BIS?

9.

Can refiners / oil companies carry out certification of service provider facilities for Mil
spec rating of corrosion inhibitors?

10. There are over 40plus degradation mechanism seen in oil industries. Which of these refiners
feel (list top 5) need for effective predictive control to eliminate untoward incidents?

2.

Sour water stripper and amine treating

1.

How critical is the CN corrosion being faced by refiners in the top section of sour
water strippers? Refiners may like to share / List the controls in place.

2.

There are cases of corrosion / fouling in reboilers of sour water system. Further, the addition
of NaOH in stripper bottom section to reduce NH3 in stripped sour water adds to desalting
concerns. Refiners may like to share use of inhibitors / anti-foulants in sour water units.

3.

Do refiners participate in amine system benchmarking? If yes, share the details pl.

3.

Coating & material Science

1.

There are developments in the surface preparation even at high temperature

applications of over 800deg C to prevent coking / corrosion. Refiners may indicate
the promising areas for such development work.

2.

The amount of Hydrogen in fuel gas in a refinery typically varies from as low as 2% vol to as
high as 30%. As hydrogen is the single largest contributor to utility cost, advancements in
material science (MOF, Membranes, Protonic electronic conducting materials, etc.) could
soon be introduced for recovery of hydrogen from waste streams. Request refiners views.

5. Waste water management & Solids handling

1.

Do any refiners carry out speciation of recalcitrant COD in waste water influent? If
yes, what is the maximum cost that refiners willing to allow to get down to 20ppm
COD in treated water in terms of cents per cum of water?

2.

Do any refinery contemplating removal of heavy metals in the final treated effluent
discharge to proactively improve the discharge water quality? If yes, details please.

3.

Amount of waste water being treated in a refinery typically varies from 0.2 to 0.3cum of
water /cum of crude oil processed. What is the target the refiners envisage this to be by next
decade? Also list the KPIs (cost of treatment, treated water quality, allowable sludge
generation, etc.) along with applicable influent quality variations that refiners wish to attain.

4.

Refiners with Coker in their configuration could be spending significant amount of water in

the coke yard to minimize coke dust issues. GE has considerable competencies in nearly
eliminating dust menace. Request refiners to provide: - a) Dust level as measured in
PM10 and or PM2.5; b) Amount of water sprayed per tonne of coke handled; c) Cost of
maintenance on hy equipment used in material handling; d) Improvement expectation

6. Cooling water system

1.

Request placing performance KPIs that service provider needs to comply viz. a) Cycle of
concentration; b) Pitting rate; c) General corrosion; d) Loss of U d with time; e) Treat cost.

2.

What is the experience of refining industries wrt total automated chemical treatment
programme (encompassing quality measuring instruments, process controls, blow down
and slip stream flow management, live corrosion updates, heat rate summary across
critical exchangers, flow, pr. & temperature profile, etc.) in cooling water system?

7. Smart / soft sensors and Insight & remote monitoring

1.

Refiners do measure several quality parameters of different batch of crude oils on arrival as
well as before being fed to crude unit. It is likely that due to paucity of time either some

parameter is not done or old data could be used while preparing crude blend. Which are the

critical parameters that refiners would like to have either SMART or SOFT sensors
which can foretell potential issues in a) desalting; b) preheat exchangers fouling; c)
higher localized corrosion; and d) ETP / RO upsets from higher ingress of recalcitrant
COD & or Ca precipitation / fouling.

2.

Refinery of the future / SMART manufacturing is some of the recent thrust in the emerging
digitized world. What are the push / enabling factors as well as limiting concerns?

3.

GE has been investing substantially on non-invasive measurements. One such is to enhance

the operating envelope of desalter. Can refiners list top ten areas for such on-line
measurements so as to raise the reefing margins? Also, please provide acceptance criteria.

4.

Refiners do have soft sensors based model. Like in IT system, is there any standard
protocol, that refiners would like developers to ensure so as to minimize model
mismatch and enhance robustness.

5.

How good refiners could correlate the CDU OH dew point pH / salting point
location(s) with actual corrosion observed?

6.

How good refiners are using the alarm sequencing as occurred in facilitating zero incident (of
any type viz. product quality, equipment malfunctioning, environmental let up, etc.)