Types of gases used in refineries and their

uses
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 Contents

1) Introduction.

2) Types of gases used in refineries.

3) Uses of gases in refineries.

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 Introduction

As steam is used in different processes in refineries, several types of gasses

are also used in refineries for different processes. From using as a main
source of fuel to used in other utility processes, the use of gasses varies.

Types of gases used in refineries

Following are some of the main types of gasses used in refineries.

 Natural gases.
 Hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane, butane, iso-butane, and natural
gasoline.
 Nitrogen
 Helium
 Hydrogen
 Carbon Dioxide

Use of gases in refineries

When it comes to the uses of gases in refineries, natural gases are mainly used
as a primary or back up fuel source. Following are the uses of natural gas or
gasified liquid natural gases in refineries.

• Used as a fuel for process and utility heaters instead of fuel oil.
• Used as a fuel and the feed for the hydrogen generation unit.
• Used as a fuel for gas turbines.
• Fuel for process heaters.

By using natural gases as fuel sources, the refineries have the ability to either
reduce or eliminate the fuel oil generation by replacing fuel oil from gases.
Delayed coker unit is used in such process currently as a cost effective method.

Nitrogen services

There are several uses of nitrogen in refineries. It is one of the main type of
industrial gases used in refineries. Uses of nitrogen in refineries varies from
processes such as purging, drying, pressure testing, etc. Currently most of the
refineries use nitrogen for their processes. For some processes, nitrogen is
mixed with other gases too. Application of nitrogen in refineries are as follows.

Drying & purging

One of the main problems in pipelines are the humidity and nitrogen is used for
purging and drying processes. A large stream of nitrogen is supplies at about
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25,000 m3/h and at a pressure of up to 700 bar and dried the pipelines and
heating them in a controlled manner.

Inerting & blanketing

In inerting and blanketing processes , inert gases such as nitrogen or CO2 are
used for reducing the amount of oxygen level down to a safe level in hazardous
environments
.
Leak & pressure testing
In leak testing, a mixture of nitrogen and helium used to detect leaks in
pipelines. This method is capable of detecting even very small leaks as helium
is used as a easily detectable tracer gas. Also for pressure testing, high pressure
nitrogen up to 700bar is used in refineries.

Pipeline pigging
In pipeline pigging, a pig is sent through a pipe in order to clean or inspect. For
this process, nitrogen is used as a pressurized gas due to its high effectiveness
and safety. Various ranges of pressure, temperatures and volume flow rates of
nitrogen is used in such processes.

Cooling purposes
Cooled nitrogen is used in refineries in order to cool down the heated
equipment for continuous operation and also used for shorten the cooling down
periods of different processes. Also cryogenic nitrogen is used for freezing
pipelines so that they do not required to drain or shut down for maintenance
purposes.

Process and quality control

In process control, measuring is done by using analytic instrumentation. For the
function of these instruments, helium is used for gas chromatography and
hydrogen for FID detectors. And in quality control, the end products of the
refineries are to be analyses. Crude oil is tested for sulphur content and
products such as petrol and diesel are to be tested for amount of octane,
benzene and sulphur contests in order to evaluate the quality standards.
Calibration gases such as helium is used for calibration of instrumentations
required for assessing the quality of refineries end products.