Petrochemical demand will increase with gross domestic product, while motor fuel demand will only show modest growth and may even decline in certain regions, given environmental/legislative pressure and the introduction of battery-powered electric vehicles.
The crude oil refining processing sequence is based on the separation of distillate products from heavier ones and concentrating the heavy molecules of the barrel for processing at the end of the refining run.
IRPC Process Technology: The latest advancements in process technologies
Refineries and petrochemical plants are comprised of a series of crucial processes to produce transportation fuels, products and chemicals demanded by the global market. These processes consist of capital-intensive units that must be maintained to provide reliable performance. Failure to adequately maintain these assets can have a detrimental effect to not only operations and profit, but also to worker safety.
Over the past several decades, the hydrocarbon processing industry has invested heavily in new processing units to produce low-sulfur and ultra-low-sulfur (ULS) transportation fuels.
Standards such as API, ASME and NFPA are applied widely in the refining industry.
On January 1, 2020, a new requirement limiting the sulfur content of marine fuel to a maximum of 0.5 wt% went into effect.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced Tier 3 gasoline sulfur standards in 2017, requiring all U.S. gasoline producers to adhere to an annual 10-ppm average sulfur limit.
Many companies are modifying existing crude refineries or building grassroots renewable diesel facilities to produce drop-in, green renewable diesel from a variety of agriculturally derived triglyceride feedstocks.
Alkylation is a process used to produce highly branched isoparaffins from the reaction of lighter olefins and isobutane in the presence of sulfuric acid as a catalyst.