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PIPELINE NEWS December 2011
Husky hungriest for low salt diet recipe By Geoff Lee Lloydminster – There were a lot of Husky Energy employees in attendance at the November technical lunch of the Lloydminster chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Their interest was piqued by guest speaker Richard McFarlane from Alberta Innovates Technology Futures and his topic titled, Low Salt Diet for Heavy Oil and Bitumen Upgraders and Refineries. His topic was derived from his discoveries from a Suncor-sponsored research project aimed at developing a more effective way to desalt bitumen. McFarlane is a team leader for the petroleum processing group at Alberta Innovates and he is the inventor of a new non-aqueous desalting technology for Suncor. The desalting of crude oil is an important first step for the reliable and safe operation at all upgraders and refineries. “Salts are a great source for corrosion in refineries so when you have corrosion, you have the danger that a pipe or a tank will perforate, fluid will leak out
Heavy oil and oilsands research scientist Richard McFarlane from Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures came to Lloydminster in November to speak about his research for Suncor on a desalting alternative to water to remove salt chlorides from bitumen.
and cause a fire or explosion and loss of life,” said McFarlane. Chloride salts, such as sodium chloride present in crude oil even at five parts per million, can lead to plugging of downstream equipment and high pressure drops. The conventional method of desalting light oil, heavy oil and bitumen is to basically wash the oil with fresh water to extract the salty water droplets from the crude oil. “We want to remove these droplets containing sodium chloride and other dissolved chlorides because they have the potential to cause corrosion in tankage, pipelines and upgraders and refineries,” said McFarlane. The salts can also plug exchangers and cause catalyst fouling and poisoning at refineries. The objective of desalting is to meet the basic sediment and water specifications for separating produced water from oil to meet pipeline shipping specifications. “When the oil gets to the refiner or upgrader, the objective there is to protect the plant from corrosion. So absolutely, you have to get the salt and chloride down to a manageable level,” said McFarlane. ɸ Page C15
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