Introduction to Petroleum

Refining and Crude Oil

Composition
Market Drivers
• Increasing fuel economy of vehicles (offset by increasing number of
vehicles and miles driven);
• More strict environmental regulations with demand for cleaner fuels;
• Biofuels as additives (e.g., ethanol, biodiesel) or alternative fuels in
niche markets (jet fuel from algae);
• Demand for high-quality, high-performance fuels.
• Refineries need process improvements to advance their
capabilities to deal with the changing crude oil base and
changing environmental regulations.
• new catalysts and new chemistry;
• more sophisticated process modeling and computational
methods;
• more effective use of computers in refinery management;
• online monitoring and property measurements;
• new materials to reduce maintenance and extend the
useful life of equipment.
• Concerns for efficiency include running a refinery efficiently and
producing fuels that will burn efficiently in the combustion engines,
as follows:
• Efficiency of refinery processes
• Minimize waste and optimize the yield and properties of the refinery products
to obtain maximum value from the crude oil.
• Increase the energy efficiency of each unit in the refinery.
• Fuel economy in internal combustion engines
• Produce high-performance fuels for efficient operation of combustion
engines.
An Overview of Refinery
Products and Processes
“Considering the market drivers just reviewed along the small
profit margins that are often usually associated with petroleum
refinery products, refineries should carefully select the crude oil
feedstock and configure the refinery processes such that they
produce the desirable petroleum products at the lowest cost”