Capabilities and Project Experience
Crude Oil Contamination
1. Management of industry supported project to assess /identify sources of condensate contamination
2. Identifying sources of solids in SAGD production facilities/upgrader
3. Additive usage/concentration in crude oil production, projection of quantitative impact on refinery operation and product quality
4. Impact of flash evaporation (Colt Treater) on salt and filterable solids generation in heavy oil production
5. Analysis of organic chlorides in crude, limitations of organic chlorides testing procedures
6. Tracking/removal of drilling muds in crudes, waste oil treaters and refineries
7. Tracking of low contaminant concentrations (ppm) from the wellhead to the refinery (phosphorus, organic chlorides, etc.)
8. Tracking of contaminants in synthetic crudes and blended crude
Finished Product Contamination
1. Detailed investigation into the sources of field butane contamination during production and transport
2. Analysis for fluorinated materials in butane
3. Semi-quantitative impact of polars on jet fuel specifications (WSIM, JFTOT, conductivity, …)
4. Tracking of polars within jet fuel merox treater and finished product tankage
5. Tracking of contaminants from refineries into finished products, marketing, distribution, and customer sites
6. Identifying contaminants and sources in “off spec” finished products
Refinery Process Operability
1. Development of a pilot plant testing protocol to assess impact of newly developed production additives
2. Impact assessment of crude oil contaminants on biox plant operation
3. Identifying, tracking and mass balancing of salts and sediments in crude units and distillation products
4. Developing a test protocol to benchmark plant desalter operation
5. Tracking of sulphur species in distillation processes/products
6. Analysis of polar contaminants/surfactants on clay treaters, freeze point analyzers, etc.
7. Identifying and tracking of polars and contaminants in distillation units, hydrotreaters and catalytic units
8. Impact of waste oil reclaimer product on refinery processes/products
9. Total mass balance for sulphur within crude units
10. Optimization of refinery LP system
11. Monitoring and tracking of organic chlorides during processing of chloride contaminated crude
12. Tracking of contaminants through the use of crude unit pilot plant simulation
13. Tracking and mass balancing of contaminants in oil sand bitumen plant
Analytical Test Procedures
1. Management of industry supported project to assess the naphthenic acid corrosive tendencies of SAGD produced bitumens, including design of new testing equipment
2. Modifying existing test method for measuring total particulate and filterable solids in light condensates
3. Investigation into the limitations of the salt in crude test procedure in heavy oil
4. Third party investigation of inter-company sampling and testing biases for crude oil custody transfer
5. High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) method for sulphur speciation
6. Pitch calculation and asphalt analysis using Probe Micro Distillation High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (PMD/HRMS)
7. Fingerprinting of contaminants in finished products (PMD/HRMS)
8. Fingerprinting of finished products for quality assurance (GC/MS)
9. Polar compound identification and tracking using GC/HRMS and PMD/HRMS
10. Use of PMD/HRMS for simulated distillation of whole crudes (foreign, domestic)
11. Development of Scanning Electron Microscopy XRF/EDXA procedure for analyzing pipeline/refinery equipment corrosion product composition and evaluating the effectiveness of pipe wall cleaning procedures
12. Development of industry based test for tracking and measuring volatile contaminants in crude oil
13. Development of an industry based procedure to evaluating the impact of production additives on refinery products
14. Modification of existing analytical procedures to meet the testing requirements of oil sand bitumen and SAGD produced crude
15. Development of a test protocol to measure low level sulfur contamination in products
Crude Production
1. Developing test methodologies/tools to assess sour service operation criteria for all major Canadian crude oil pipelines
2. Testing of solids in reverse emulsion from SAGD production facilities
3. Management of industry supported project to assess the quality and potential refinery processability issues of SAGD produced bitumens
Crude Pipelining
1. Total sulphur/density balance across crude pipeline gathering system
2. “Cradle to Grave” (Producer to Refiner) tracking of S&W components in Heavy Oil
3. Impact assessment of pipeline tank cleaning on crude oil quality
4. Development of a test program to assess effectiveness of a crude oil pipeline conversion to finished product service
5. Identifying and correcting source of crude oil S &W contamination during blending operations
Finished Product Pipelining
1. Developing and supervising of analytical protocol to assess ULSD capabilities of all Canadian finished product pipelines
2. Developing and supervising the cleaning program for the recommissioning of a contaminated finished product pipeline
3. Investigations into the source(s) of wax formation during diesel tranpsort
4. Analysis and tracking of fuel properties and contaminants during pipelining. Contaminants include, sulphur, polars, sediments in diesel, gasoline, jet and MTBE
5. Development of pipeline shipping protocols to minimize finished product contamination
6. Measuring additive (DRA, Lubricity, Conductivity) cross contamination/tailback in finished products during pipelining
7. Development of a fuel filterability test procedure for measuring contamination during transport
8. Measuring low level (ppm) sulfur tailback during transport of low sulfur gasoline and ULSD
Pipeline Modeling
1. Develop a methodology to improve the measurement/prediction of viscosities for high water content emulsions
2. Modeling of dead oil VLE behavior under bubble point conditions
3. Interfacial length growth modelling based on several competing developed algorithms
4. Estimation of anticipated contamination for interfacial cuts for pipeline service change and new projects
5. Asymmetric (low turbulence) cutpoint calculation based on real time data can be used to calculate interface volumetric midpoints
6. Cutpoint selection for optimization of contamination or degradation
Pipeline Contamination Control
1. Contamination estimation for pipeline interfaces – existing and modelled
2. Cutpoint selection for contamination control
3. Estimation of contamination impacts due to tank farm piping
4. Evaluation of new crude types and quality compatibility with existing types
5. Evaluation of new physical plant design proposals for volume exchange, contamination and quality concerns
Degradation (volume exchange) Cost Control
1. Calculation of tank farm piping impacts to degradation
2. Calculation of batched pipeline degradation costs due to low turbulence flow
3. Evaluation of scheduling and system utilization impacts on degradation
4. Evaluation of tank service change costs, quality impacts and manifold utilization changes