Emulsion Breakers enhance electrical desalter operation.March 25, 2011 -
Helping to optimize desalter performance, Embreak® breakers also help oil refineries reduce nonylphenol ethoxylates. Oil soluble demulsifiers improve crude oil dehydration, salt removal, and effluent brine quality in electrical desalters and similar process equipment. Specifically, breakers dehydrate difficult to treat, light- to medium-gravity crude oils. Resulting process improvements include ability to run at lower injection rates while effectively separating water from oil.
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Original Press release
GE Co.
25925 Telegraph Dr.
Southfield, MI, 48034
USA
GE Introduces New Desalter Emulsion Breaker Chemistry for Light and Medium Density Crudes
GE's Full Suite of Emulsion Breakers Delivers Optimal Refinery Desalter Performance, Potentially Lowering Operational Costs and Increasing Environmental Benefits
New Offering Expands Breakthrough Process from Heavy Oil to Enable Light and Medium Crudesv
TREVOSE, PA.-GE (NYSE: GE) today announced it has introduced the next generation of its innovative Embreak* emulsion breakers. Coupling the new chemistry for light and medium density crude oils with the first generation heavy crude oil emulsion breakers, GE now offers a full suite of products that span the entire range of crudes, delivering optimal desalter performance, potentially reducing total costs of operation and increasing environmental benefits.
Building on the success of the first generation, GE's new emulsion breakers continue the trend of improved chemistry with a lower environmental footprint that delivers better performance. The new suite of Embreak products is designed to help light-to-medium crude oil refineries reduce nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE), a chemical byproduct of emulsion breaker intermediate products.
"With this next generation of emulsion breakers, refineries can optimize desalter performance at reduced chemical costs, while also reducing potential environmental impact," said Buzz Barlow, general manager, hydrocarbon process-water and process technologies for GE Power & Water.
"This expanded spectrum of Embreak chemistries will allow us to serve a larger number of refineries around the globe that can benefit from our technology," added Barlow.
In a recent application, a North American refinery was experiencing frequent brine quality issues in one of its crude units, resulting in increased solids in the feed to the desalter. Also, the refinery had to reprocess a reduced crude stream as a result of an extended shut down. This situation required the refinery to seek an alternative approach to the desalter operation to restore performance.
With GE's new Embreak demulsifier chemistry, the chemical injection was optimized to maintain desalter performance at reduced chemical costs while eliminating oil recycling, resulting in $350,000 in operational savings per year. As a result of this change, the refinery saw a reduction of 33 percent in salts and 24 percent improvement in solids removal. In addition, the demulsifier product used in this case contains no NPE, lowering the environmental footprint of this application.
Technical Details, Benefits
The new Embreak products are oil soluble demulsifiers developed to improve crude oil dehydration, salt removal and effluent brine quality in electrical desalters and other similar process equipment. These emulsion breakers are designed to dehydrate difficult to treat, light-to-medium gravity crude oils and have proven successful in a variety of oils with 22+ API gravity. The upgraded process is able to run at lower injection rates than previous demulsifier applications while more effectively separating water from the oil.
According to results of GE's initial field tests and in-plant evaluations, the new demulsifier process resulted in significant improvements to the various types of processed crude from Canada, the United States, the North Sea and the Middle East.
This product is commercially available today from GE.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) is an advanced technology, services and finance company taking on the world's toughest challenges. Dedicated to innovation in energy, health, transportation and infrastructure, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com.
GE serves the energy sector by developing and deploying technology that helps make efficient use of natural resources. With more than 90,000 global employees and 2010 revenues of $38 billion, GE Energy www.ge.com/energy is one of the world's leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies. The businesses that comprise GE Energy-GE Power & Water, GE Energy Services and GE Oil & Gas-work together to provide integrated product and service solutions in all areas of the energy industry including coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy; renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and biogas; and other alternative fuels.
* Trademark of General Electric Company; may be registered in one or more countries.
Copyright 2011 General Electric Company
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