ADVANCE PETROLEUM REFINING

ENGINEERING
7204CHE-4
by
Professor Hamed Nasser Ben Harharah
Chemical Engineering Departments
In
Engineering Faculty - King Khalid University
&
Faculty Engineering and Petroleum
1445
Theories of Petroleum Origin
1- Inorganic Theory
2- Organic Theory
Inorganic Theory:
The scientists as Mendeleev (1800), Mossan,
Sabatier said that the petroleum was coming
from some metallic reactions between carbides
or carbonate with water:
2FeC + 3H₂O → C₂H₆ + Fe₂O₃ CaC₂
+2H₂O → C₂H₂ + Ca (OH)₂
3CaCO₃+4H₂O→C₃H₈+ CaO+2CaO₆
Organic Theory:
Since 1900 Engler said that oil and gas have
biological origins. Small sea creatures, animals,
and plants from the days when the earth was
mostly covered in water died and settled to the
bottom of the ocean floor. These deposited
materials formed the oil under effect of non-
oxygen bacteria, pressure and temperature and
millions of years into sedimentary layers
(Fisheries).
Failures of Inorganic Theory:
1- This theory fails to explain presence of
oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur compounds, and
chlorophyll in petroleum.
2- also, petroleum contains optically active
compounds which we cannot get it by ordinary
synthetic methods in the laboratory.
Organic hypotheses:
At present time, most authorities widely favor
the organic approach. Their principal reasons are
the following:
1. inorganic theory can not account the
necessary quantities of carbon and hydrogen
needed to form large petroleum amount, but the
abundance of small sea creatures, plant, and
animal that present in sediments is considered
sufficient source.
2. Many kinds of petroleum contain porphyrin,
which is origin vegetable color.
3. All most crude oils contain nitrogen, which is
an animal origin, too.
Conclusions of Geologists:
1- Petroleum considers a complex mixture of
Hydrocarbon substances as gas & liquid.
2-Petroleum originates from organic materials,
primarily vegetable, which has been altered by
effect of 200˚C, 1-1000 PSI, non-oxygen bacteria,
and other agents over long time period.
3-Conditions favoring petroleum formation are
found only in sedimentary rocks.
4-The sediments generally consider as probable
source rocks are shales and limestones. They
were originally mud under saline water.
5-Crude oil, in the presence of layers of
sedimentary and igneous rocks as a result of the
migration of petroleum.
 Migration of Petroleum:
Petroleum as gas & liquid, after its formation, migrates from
the source rock into porous and permeable beds where it
accumulates and continues its migration until finally
trapped, that is called Trap or Reservoir.

Types of sedimentary Reservoirs:

Fig. 1. Anticline reservoir ‫خزان الطية المحدبة‬ Fig. 2. Stratigraphic reservoir ‫خزان طبقي‬

Figure 3. Fault reservoir ‫خزان صدعي‬ Figure 4. Salt Dome Reservoir‫خزان القبة الملحية‬