The economics of processing opportunity crudes is often so attractive that more and more refineries are updating their strategy for purchasing these difficult crudes. The experience gained from treating over 50 high acid crude units over the last 20 years is used to manage the risks of processing new opportunity crudes.
When developing a strategy for processing opportunity crudes, you must consider the total impact on the refinery- both positive and negative. This paper shows an effective way to analyze opportunity crudes for potential negative impacts on the process. Risk managing techniques for corrosivity studies, desalter emulsion stability, fouling prediction and stability issues are reported. Listed are laboratory and field evaluations utilising on-line monitoring systems, corrosion probes and corrosion coupons. Proper monitoring strategy is critical to successfully managing the risk of processing opportunity crudes. Finally, the use of high temperature corrosion inhibitors was successfully evaluated as a means to mitigate naphthenic acid corrosion.
KEYWORDS: Naphthenic Acid, Total Acid Number (TAN), Naphthenic Acid Titration (NAT), Inhibitors, Field Evaluation, Hot Fast Loop, Grane Crude Oil, Asian high TAN Gas-Oil