Challenges in Modern Petroleum Engineering for Gasoline Production 

GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND ON “SOUR” SOURCES

“Petroleum engineers make the world run.” This quote is much powerful that shows the strength of engineers in our society. For current civilizations, the primary source of energy is fossil fuel-based hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons are meets with 83% of energy needs, and this consumption will be continued even after two decades. Challenges for the petroleum industry will increase if demands for petroleum consumption will remain the same. Gas and oil companies are producing gas and oil from reservoirs is a natural process if seen with a technical lens. Companies will have to develop more challenging and complex sour hydrocarbon projects. Researchers (Duissenov, 2013) predict that in the coming future natural gas and crude oil having high sulphur contains will be used as energy sources to meet with exceeding demands for energy. Petroleum needs worldwide are tremendously increasing, but available resources are short enough to reach the requirements of people and growing industries. Researches show that 40% of natural gas reserves and 70% of crude oil reserves contain huge content of organosulfur reserves. To meet with increasing energy demands and consumption in all areas, fossil fuels with sour contaminants will have to be developed cautiously (Cunha, 2005).

Currently, the sulphur level with off-road and on-road diesel and gasoline is confined between 10-15 ppm concerning weight in countries like the USA and EU. Looking towards the wellness of developed countries, developing countries are also adopting these trends. Companies are also putting efforts to eliminate the emission of sulphur from the burning of fossil fuels in the coming future. In the scientific community, worldwide consumption of sulphur-free or sour sources is intended to be eliminated because the world is focusing on the development of low sulphur automotive fuels (Gomes, 2010).

A research report from 2013 says there were 1.6 billion barrels of petroleum across the world. According to OPEC, there are 73.6% world oil reserves available across the globe. Venezuela holds the majority of sour crude oil reserves and contributes to the world’s petroleum reserves up to 18% identified from the country. Other countries that provide to global sour crude oil reservoirs include Saudi Arabia contributing 16.2%, Iran 9.4%, Canada contributing 10.6% and Iraq contributing 9.6% in total. Middle East countries are providing 48% of total petroleum reservoirs across the globe. Central America is offering 20% being the second world’s most contributor. According to the International Energy Agency estimated that 70% of the world’s petroleum reservoirs contains weighty materials. The crudity from these 70% oil reservoirs is heavy and awkward to be extracted. The original heavy product is the availability of sulphur in these reservoirs. There are numerous reasons for crude oil, but the primary goal is the depletion of the production process that is done through conventional and deterioration methods. Background or history of crude oil production that is traced back to 150 years also have flaws that need to be filled for sour system management. History of crude oil production is as follows;

1. It is a fact that all available oil reservoirs were discovered 50 years ago
2. In the 1960’s most of oil reservoir discoveries had started declining
3. In the 1980’s, annual consumption of oil or petroleum has been exceeding
4. Still the current year more than 47,500 oil fields have been found, but the 400 largest oilfields contain more than 75% of all oil were found

Apart from petroleum reservoirs, gas reservoirs that are also coming short and in the coming future, there will also be decreased compared to demand. Available resources of natural gas by the Middle East, Eurasia, and Europe provide 75% of total available resources. 40% of natural gas reservoirs are still under production and are sour having CO₂ and H₂S containments.

Below diagram is showing the distribution of produced oil reservoirs across the world in past years to 1991-2011.

Figure 1: Distribution of proved reserves of crude oil in 1991, 2001 and 2011 (Duissenov, 2013)

Global crude oil demand is expected to increase, but the growth of production processes is declining up to 0.8% annually. The OPEC says that crude oil demand is growing since 2011 and will remain same till 2035. The increment on the need of petroleum reservoirs every year is noticed 20 MB/d that shows the total demand will reach at 107.3 Mb/d by 2035. Most demand for oil reservoirs is seen in Asian countries. The table shows changing trends in the production as well as the market for petroleum reservoirs that shows increasing demand for petroleum products. The chart below is showing the world oil demand outlook in the last few years;

Figure 2: World oil demand outlook (Mb/d) (Duissenov, 2013)

SPECIFICATIONS AND TYPES

            There are following terms and specific terms that we should know before understanding

challenges for modern petroleum engineering for gasoline production;

1. Sweet or Sour Crude Oil

The crude oil could be sweet or sour depending on the amount of sulphur in it. The oil is called sweet when the crude oil will contain sulphur less than 0.5%. And if the crude oil will contain sulphur more than 0.5%, it will sour.

2. Petroleum Reservoirs

Petroleum reservoirs are defined as a subsurface pool of reservoirs available in fractured or porous rocks that are used to meet with different human needs. Petroleum reservoirs are both conventional and non-conventional.

3. Brent Blend

Brent is the name referred to the grade of oil extracted from the North Sea. The word Brent means Broom, Ness, Rannoch and Tarbat.

4. Tapis Crude

It is a benchmark used to represent light sweet Malaysian crude. This type of crude content of sulphur found less up to 0.03% that makes the API gravity also low around it that is 45.5 approximately. Tapis Crude is commonly used in Asian countries as the sour source.

5. OPEC Basket

It is defined as the pricing data or collection of pricing units of seven crude oils from OPEC nations, excluding Mexico. OPEC nations include Mexico’s Isthmus, Saudi Arabia’s Arab Light, Indonesia’s Minas, Nigeria’s Bonny Light, Algeria’s Saharan Blend, Venezuela’s Tia Juana Light, and Dubai’s Fateh. OPEC use information of types of crude oil marketed into these countries to monitor global conditions of the overall global market (Duissenov, 2013).

PRODUCTION PROCESSES, CHALLENGES & IMPACTS

The process of crude oil refining to make petroleum or gasoline is not natural. In past times the process was not as complicated as it is today. The current production process of gasoline is performed through refineries, but still, it takes time and efforts. There are several ways to refine crude oil to make gasoline.

There are following three steps to extract gasoline from crude oil;

1. Separation
2. Conversion
3. Treatment

1. Separation

The first step is a separation that starts from the pumping of crude oil into pipes through the use of hot furnaces and by heating the fuel to produce vapours. While heating resulting vapours are passed through the distillation towers (these towards looks like narrow and tall columns that at refiners used to give them distinctive skylines). After discharging through distillation towers, vapours and liquids separated into fractions based on the boiling points and density of each fraction. Those fractions that possess lowest boiling points and density raised to the top of the tower to perform the condensation process. Those fractions that are of medium weight like diesel oil and kerosene oil are located at the middle of towers and heavier gases found at the lower of towers. Portions are having the highest boiling points stay at the bottom. These tar-fractions are known as residuum, that means the bottom of the barrel.

These different fractions planted at different sections of the refinery. Different portions require different treatments and processing to turn into jet fuel. Fractions separately destined

Figure 3: Crude Oil Refining

2. Conversion: Cracking and rearranging molecules

The second stage for the refinery is a conversion that proceeds with the processing of fractions from distillation tower to streams that after processed into finished products. That is the step where transformations where low-value fractions turned into gasoline. There are different methods of conversion that are used to turn fractions into gasoline that are as follows;

1. Cracking

The one mostly used conversion method is cracking, in which pressure and heat are used to crack heavy hydrocarbons into light pieces. One molecule could be cracked into more than one think, tall and bullet-shaped contains that are known as reactors at the end.

1. Fluid Catalytic Cracking

It is one of the necessary gasoline catalytic cracking procedure that uses low pressure, intense heat and powered catalysts to convert heat heavy hydrocarbon units into simpler gasoline units/molecules.

• Hydrocracking

Hydrocracking works on the same principle but uses low temperatures, hydrogen and high pressure to crack heavier molecules into simpler molecules and to initiate chemical reactions. Numerous refineries use cokers that use moderate pressure and heat to change residuum into lighter products. Cokers are most used refinery samples that are used in modern times.

1. Reforming

Reforming is another essential type of conversion that use moderate pressure, heat and catalyst to transform naphtha a low-value and a light fraction of oil into the high octane gasoline.

3. Treatment: Adding the finishing touches

Treatment is the final step of the conversion of crude oil into gasoline. Treatment is when tankers transfer refined gasoline to our local power stations for use. Current refining techniques are more advance, and the new refining use purifying, blending, fine-tuning and improvement of products to meet with quality requirements. Treatment involves a combination of different streams originated from processing units. These variable stream units used to determine the octane level of produced gasoline and also determine other essential considerations regarding altitudes of gasoline.

This whole process intended to make sure that the bottle of oil/gasoline pumped into the car must be free of heavy hydrocarbons and other sulphur compounds (Joanquin, 2015).

Most highlighted challenges are coming into the production process of quality oil. Transformation of process methods over time and changing preferences regarding demand of quality petroleum products is posing challenges for the industry. The global petroleum industry faces three significant challenges; reduce costs, environmental footprints and performance of industrial based assets (MBBR, 2019).

4. Market, Policy and Environment

Market trends of petroleum engineering and gasoline production are changing with time—these trends affecting demand and supply chains into the market. For example, to keep competition into the market production costs for petroleum and gasoline kept low, that is one of the significant challenges for the industry. Current market priority is to keep environmental utilities and systems maintained for the industry. These steps need to maintain production, to maximize production efficiency and to refine quality gasoline.

Policies regarding refinery and production of gasoline from crude oil are also changing because of the influence burning of fossil fuels on the environment. Burning of fossil fuels and emission of sulfur from fossil fuels burning affecting our environment. The focus of the world is turning towards green industrial growth. In order to promote green production, policies are planned accordingly. The oil and petroleum industry consume much energy that is planned to manage by using upstream and downstream treatment systems. Changing global environment is also a challenge for the oil and petroleum industry. The consumption of water in refineries and industries causing a shortage for future. In order to cope with these challenges, crude oil production and transforming methods are being replaced by more authentic like green production methods. Innovative methods for the refining of crude oil from rock fermentations are under process to avoid carbon/sulphur footprints on the planet.

5. Analysis of Implementation Challenges

After explaining the process, the last and most crucial step is to analyze challenges that could come across while the implementation of the production process. There are following types of challenges that might affect the production process;

1. Technical Challenges

The process of purification of crude oil might contain a high quantity of sulphur that will take more time to pure upstream form named gasoline. There are very few resources that directly define technical challenges that might come across the way. The first technical challenge is corrosion. Availability of carbon dioxide and sulphur creates the environment that causes corrosion. In industry, there are precious materials that can withstand the corrosive environment. These challenges could be avoided if industries should select such materials that oppose cracking and bear extreme corrosive environment.

1. Economic Challenges

This is another crucial challenge during implementation. High technical material necessary for the production of sour crudes costs are sometimes become challenging to handle. For example, cost of production units and facilities of acid gas handling, compression, pumping and much more that requires costly feedstock.

• Environmental Challenges

Environmental protection agencies and governments are putting restrictions on the production of sulphur-containing refined fuels. These changing trends want refineries to build environment-friendly technologies for the production process. This is a massive challenge for industries having less capital investment.

1. Safety Challenges

Production of sour oil through system and harmful gases is a risky process that put safety risks though. Working with hydrogen compounds and sulphur oxides need extra protection (Duissenov, 2013).

The paper discusses challenges in modern petroleum engineering for gasoline production that help us to understand reasons and factors that are posing a threat and limit the production of gasoline. Along with a detailed description of the production process, the paper also discusses challenges, market position (supply and demand), policies and the environment with the relevancy of petroleum engineering.

References

Cunha, J. C. (2005). CHALLENGES FOR PETROLEUM ENGINEERING EDUCATION. University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, http://www.ogbus.ru/eng/.

Duissenov, D. (2013). Production and processing of sour crude and natural gas – challenges due to increasingly stringent regulations. NTNU, 2-113.

Gomes, D. A. (2010). Challenges and technological opportunities for the oil refining industry. Researchgate. 311.

Joanquin, S. (2015). What is a Refinery? http://www.sjvgeology.org/oil/refinery.html.

MBBR, V. (2019). The new challenges of the oil & gas industry. https://www.veolia.com/en/newsroom/thematic-reports/the-new-challenges-of-the-oil-and-gas-industry.