AECH1103: Topic 1- Natural Gas and Petroleum

upstream operations

finding, lifting and processing oil and gas from subsurface into surface and ready for transportation

midstream operation

transportation and storage of crude oil and natural gas from E&P plant for further processing by pipeline, railway, road, or tanker

downstream operations

further processing of crude oil and natural gas into useful final product of raw material for other industry

hydrocarbon

crude oil is mostly composed of ________

paraffins, naphthene and aromatics

most importants constituents of crude oil are ______

sweet crude oil

(low sulfur) if its sulfur level is less than a threshold value

sour crude oil

(high sulfur) if its sulfur levell is above a higher threshold

desalting

to remove water, inorganic salts, suspended solids, and water-soluble trace metals

chemical desalting

(type of desalting) water and chemical surfactant are added to the crude, which is heated so that salts and other impurities dissolve or attach to the water then held in a tank to settle out

electrostatic separation

(type of desalting) The application of high-voltage electrostatic charges to concentrate suspended water globules in the bottom of the settling tank. Surfactants are added only when the crude has a large amount of suspended solids.

ammonia

it is often used to reduce corrosion

refining

an industrial process whereby crude oil undergoes various chemical processes to convert it into products such as gasoline diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas

distillation

(under refining) the process of separating components of a mixture based on different boiling points

cracking

(under refining) the process by which heavy hydrocarbon molecules are broken up into lighter molecules by means of heat and usually pressure and sometimes catalysts

crude distillation unit

to distill and separate valuable distillates (naphtha, kerosene, diesel) and atmospheric gas oil (AGO) from the crude feedstock

vacuum distillation unit

to recover valuable gas oild from reduced crude via vacuum distillation

octane number

measure of the ignition quality of fuel (gasoline or petrol)

thermal cracking

(types for cracking) process in which hydrocarbons present in crude oil are subject to __**high heat and temperature**__ to break the molecular bons and breaking down long-chained, high-boiling hydrocarbons into __**shorter-chained, lower-boiling hydrocarbons**__

fluid catalytic cracking

(types of cracking) It is a chemical process that __**utilizes a catalyst and heat**__ to break long-chain hydrocarbons into smaller-chain hydrocarbons. The catalyst is a __**sand-like solid material**__ that is fluidized by the hot liquid and vapor fed into the FCC Unit.

FCC

a chemical process that used a catalyst to create new, smaller molecules from larger molecules to gasoline and distillate fuels.

alkylation

a process that combines light iso-paraffins, most commonly isobutane, with C3–C4 olefins, to produce a mixture of higher molecular weight iso-paraffins (i.e., alkylate) in presence of a catalyst, either sulfuric acid or hydrofluoric acid

reforming

processing technique by which the molecular structure of a hydrocarbon is rearranged to alter properties

blending

physical mixture of a number of different liquid hydrocarbons to produce a finshed product with a certain desired characteristics

LNG

a natural gas that has been cooled and condensed to a liquid

GTL

converts natural gas – the cleanest-burning fossil fuel – into high-quality liquid products that would otherwise be made from crude oil