Overcoming Shale Oil Processing Challenges

The amount of shale oil (also called tight oil) being refined and the number of refineries processing these oils have increased rapidly during the past few years.  While these oils are readily available and less expensive than most conventional crude oils, they present several processing challenges in refinery crude units.  These problems range from storage tank wax deposition, to rapid preheat exchanger and furnace fouling, and increased tower salting.  The resultant operational issues have led to cases of reduced throughput and even crude unit shutdowns. 

This presentation reviews the problems posed by shale oil processing and presents prediction and control strategies that refiners have used to overcome such challenges.