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Increasing Throughput & Easier to Use:

Refinery Support Laboratory Experience

with micro and Fast Gas Chromatography

Brian Rohrback, Infometrix, Inc.

GCC 2014

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Heavy Oils & Sands

Heavy oil offers a possible solution to our need for a constant supply of new and secure energy supplies, but its production is characterized by low recovery, so the industry faces the conundrum of how to convert these giant resources into easily produced supplies.

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News Update: October 10, 2014

CB&I, Chevron to upgrade BapcoBahrain refinery to process heavy oils

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Projected World Energy Supplies

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

20

40

60

80

100100 BILLION

BARRELS

NaturalGas

NaturalGas

Hydroelectric

Crude Oil

Solar, WindGeothermal

Nuclear Electric

1993

CoalCoal

Decre

asin

gF

ossil F

uels

Ne

w T

ech

no

log

ies

World Energy Demand

Heavy Oils

Bil

lio

n B

arre

ls o

f O

il E

qu

ival

ent

per

Yea

r

3Rechsteiner 2007

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Projected World Energy Supplies

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

20

40

60

80

100100 BILLION

BARRELS

NaturalGas

NaturalGas

Crude Oil

1993

CoalCoal

Fossil F

uels

World Energy Demand

Heavy Oils

4

Bil

lio

n B

arre

ls o

f O

il E

qu

ival

ent

per

Yea

r

Rechsteiner 2007

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Rejuvenating Heavy Oil

• CB&I,

Chevron to

upgrade

Bapco

Bahrain

refinery to

process

heavy oils

• 10.10.2014 Significant Heavy Oil Projects Span the Globe

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Increased focus on thermal technologies

Horizontal wells to tap into the significant resource in place

Pursuing oil and liquids-rich gas resource plays

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Plant Lab Situation

– Many analyses are performed by gas

chromatography

• Boiling range distributions

• Refinery gas composition

• Sulfur speciation

– Both instrumentation and the methods

decades old

• Equipment is being replaced

• Presenting the opportunity for method upgrades

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Increasing GC Throughput

– The D7798 Inter Laboratory Study

validates external equivalency with D2887

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• Faster analyses… < 5 minute cycles

• Easier operations… automation

• Data equivalency from an internal

perspective

• Data equivalency from an external

perspective

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C5 to C50: 3 minute run

nC44

10 light crude

oils run in

duplicate

8

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First Pass on Heavy Oils

9

nC44

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Polywax

nC60

10

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Heavy Oils Can Look Like Speed Bumps

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nC60

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Variability in Heavy Oils

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Oils Can Be Easily Classified

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Hierarchical Cluster Analysis

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Group 1

15

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Group 2

16

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Group 3

17

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Group 4

18

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Group 5

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Going Forward

– The so-called micro GCs are clearly not just

for gases and there may be significant

advantages in applications that are found in

heavy oil.

– The ability to place a GC nearly anywhere

and be able to process data quickly will allow

both better understanding and better control

of the extraction and transport of these

important feedstocks.

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Easier, Faster, Smaller, Smarter and using Low power

Info

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ixAcknowledgements

• Dean Alcorn, Husky Lima Refinery

• Carl Rechsteiner, Chevron Energy & Technology Company

• Ken Peters, Schlumberger

• Ned Roque, Falcon Instruments

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