Energy Performance of Italian Oil Refineries Based on Mandatory Energy Audits

Petroleum products account for the 32.3% of worldwide primary energy. There are more than 100 oil refineries in Europe that directly employ 119,000 people with a turnover of EUR 600 billion and around 1.2% to the total value added in manufacturing. Therefore, the petroleum refining sector is very important in the European economy, and its decarbonization is crucial in the energy transition. Refineries present a high degree of complexity and integration, and the continuous increase of their energy efficiency is a key topic for the sector. In this work an analysis of the energy efficiency in ten Italian refineries based on mandatory energy audits and public data is presented. The primary (0.0963 ± 0.0341 toe/t), thermal (3421.71 ± 1316.84 MJ/t), and electrical (68.20 ± 19.34 kWh/t) specific energy consumptions have been evaluated. Some insights about the impact of refined products mix (mainly driven by production of diesel fuel) and Nelson Complexity Index in energy consumption are presented. Lastly, an overview of energy performance improvement actions (EPIAs) information extracted from energy audits is presented. This work presents a first step for the benchmark of Italian refineries that should be subsequently improved.

MODERN METHODS OF REACTIVE POWER COMPENSATION IN PETROCHEMICAL PRODUCTION

Electrical circuits of reactive power compensation on the basis of thyristor control circuits in the power supply system of oil refineries are considered. The main advantages, advantages over traditional reactive power compensation systems and directions of introduction into the power supply system of modern production are formulated.

HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES IN ATMOSPHERIC DISCHARGES OF PIPE FURNACES REFINING PLANTS

The article deals with atmospheric emissions from fuel combustion in tubular furnaces of oil refineries

The jet fuels anti-wear properties indicator

There are three main fuel brands for jet engines of civil aviation used: domestic TS-1 and RT and foreign, produced in relatively small volumes in Russia, JET A-1 (JET A-1). Since the end of the 2000s, foreign manufacturers have made claims to the quality of the mass-used domestic fuel brand TS-1, and these claims have not been specified. However, the service life of a number of foreign engines operating on TS-1 fuel has been reduced by 50%. This circumstance can be caused by both subjective reasons – commercial and political interests of equipment manufacturers, and the objective ones. The main objective reason may be that recently several Russian plants producing TS-1 fuel have begun to produce composite propellant under the same name, where products of secondary oil refining processes are added to the straight-run fractions. These fuels meet the requirements of the standard (GOST 10227-86), which does not contain an indicator that characterizes the anti-wear properties of jet fuels. In the standard for JET A-1 fuel, anti-wear properties are normalized, and they are also normalized in the standard for domestic fuels for supersonic aviation. The article presents comparative tests of anti-wear properties of samples of jet fuels used in the civil aviation. The article substantiates the relevance of the anti-wear properties indicator in the standard for domestic brands of jet fuels for subsonic aircraft introduction, as well as the comparative analysis of the anti-wear properties of fuels produced by various Russian oil refineries. Indicators and methods for assessing the anti-wear properties of aviation fuels can be different. As such an indicator, it is proposed to use the anti-wear properties indicator calculated after testing fuel samples on a four-ball friction machine.

Some aspects of justification of acceptable risk levels in oil refineries

Currently, the problems of environmental safety are facing society. The industry develops every year. In this critical economic situation, the oil industry is a stimulant for the economic sector in Azerbaijan. The level of development of this industry is also relevant due to other reasons: sociological, technological and features of the economy of Azerbaijan. The production activity of oil processing, concentrating harmful substances and energy, is a source of man-made danger and pollution of the natural environment. The risk management process mainly consists of three stages - risk safety analysis, risk assessment, which is carried out in comparison of calculated and actual risk levels, the so-called acceptable risk levels and the adoption of appropriate regulations and management decisions. One of the factors that should be taken into account when assessing risk and safety is to determine the necessary costs. Since these costs are paid directly to the company, they try to minimize them as much as possible, which reduce the accuracy of risk assessment. One of the objectives of the study is to determine the optimal value of the necessary costs. It is established that the less reliable the method, the lower is the cost of its implementation. The methodological basis of the work was scientific works on these problems of scientists-economists, mathematicians on safety and risk assessment at industrial enterprises. When developing the presented methodology, computational algorithms developed by Dow Chemical were used. This company has collected a large volume of material on accident statistics, taking into account damages. Based on the obtained and experimentally verified data, a system of indices has been developed, an assessment of various indicators for qualitative and quantitative risk assessment of oil refineries. The analysis of the technogenic danger of oil refineries makes it possible to determine ecological and economic losses and choose rational possibilities of acceptable risk. The required costs, depending on the level of risk, are determined based on an increase in the accuracy of calculating the probability of occurrence of the cause of risks. The article examines the relationship between the expected level of risk and economic losses during oil refining in separate technological units, which allow determining the required level of risk and the expected economic damage.

The Impact of the 2020 Oil Production Fluctuations on Methane Emissions over the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries: A Satellite Approach

The COVID-19 outbreak has significantly affected global industrial and transportation markets. Airlines, rails, and cars’ industries and their supporting energy sectors have been substantially disrupted by the pandemic. This has resulted in undermined energy demand around the world during 2019 and 2020. The organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) led by Saudi Arabia failed to persuade Russia to cutback oil supplies to deal with the loss of demand from the COVID-19 pandemic. On 8 March 2020, Saudi Arabia announced a raise in its oil production and offered a large discount on its crude oil sales. By April 2020, Saudi Arabia increased its oil production to about 12 million-oil barrels/day. This rise in oil production has not only resulted in the biggest fall in oil prices since the 1991 Gulf War but also increased methane emissions over the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regions. Here, we report 2019 and 2020 data set of average seasonal methane-mixing ratio retrieved from TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on board of S5P spacecraft over 19 refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Low methane emissions were recorded over western and central Saudi Arabia compared to the eastern side of the country. In general, high methane emissions were observed in 2020 compared to 2019 around oil refineries and fields in western, central, and eastern regions of Saudi Arabia as well as over other GCC countries. This could be attributed to the oil high production associated with the oil prices fluctuation during 2020.

Implementasi Realitas Berimbuh pada Antarmuka Manusia-Mesin di Industri Proses

Process industries such as oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and power plants require a human-machine interface system to monitor continuously. The operator usually carries out monitoring via a human-machine interface. However, it is difficult to know the condition of process equipment in real-time. The implementation of augmented reality allows engineers to visualize process equipment in real-time when conducting field inspections. The implementation of augmented reality at the human-machine interface to the fluid catalytic cracking process in an oil refinery is discussed in this paper. The design was started by developing a three-dimensional process equipment model using Autodesk Inventor. The result of the three-dimensional model then using Unity 3D software connected to the Vuforia Engine was implemented on a gadget into an augmented reality application. Data communication performance analysis was carried out using inferential statistics methods to test variations in service quality at levels 0, 1, and 2. The result of the Tukey test showed that the communication network latency value in level 2 was significantly higher than levels 0 and 1, which was 0.704±0.108 seconds. These results indicate that augmented reality can be implemented on human-machine interfaces by ensuring the quality of data communication services using Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol at levels 0 or 1.

Economic aspects of the development of the world markets of petroleum products since the middle of the XX century

The study of the development of the world markets of petroleum products in the period from 1950 to 2021 allows us to conclude that up to 2014 there was a steady increase in the total capacity of the world oil industry . The increase in capacity occurred against the background of a quantitative decrease in oil refineries and an increase in their production capacity. The decrease in the number of small oil refining units was accompanied by an increase in the average capacity in the oil industry.