Crude Oil Refining Plants
Efficient yet thrifty
The Process
Crude Oil Refining may be elaborated into the following steps:
The process begins with the extraction of crude oil. Foremost, to refine any crude oil, we must have some of it. Geologists and surveyors have their respective techniques (e.g. radar, sonar, etc) to determine and locate the earthly cavities which may contain accumulates of crude oil. These may be contained in subterranean locations or even in off shore, sub marine cavities.
Next, these extracts are moved to a group gathering station where these are stored in a central storage facility.
Preliminary separation of contents takes place in this step. The natural gas content is separated out, from which a bit may get condensed. This condensate consists mainly of volatile hydrocarbons and MS, MTT, SKO.
Preliminary separation of contents
The liquid crude part which has been separated is then stored in intermediate storage tanks and is ready for transport to the respective refinery. Depending upon the size of the consignment, the crude may be transported by rail or road. Rail transport obviously being for larger projects.
Now, the crude is received at the refinery. After this the actually refining will take place. It is mostly by distillation. This distillation is performed in fractionating columns which may vary in size as per capacities. Further betterment of product may be brought about by catalytic cracking of higher hydrocarbons and blending the lower hydrocarbons with the respective cracked products.
Distillation Process
The distillation column is the real region of technology. Here various products of various differing boiling points will be obtained at their respective levels. The highest level is for the collection of the most volatile and lowest is for the heaviest & most viscous content. The intermediate levels are a gradual transmission. The number of these intermediate outputs are as per requirements
The Distillation column