CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION:

A crude oil refinery is a group of industrial facilities that turns crude oil and
other inputs into finished petroleum products.

TYPES OF CRUDE OIL:

1) LIGHT AND HEAVY CRUDE OIL:

The words light and heavy describe a crude oils density and its
resistance to flow (viscosity). Some, which are low in metals and sulfur
content, light in color and consistency, and flow easily, are known as light.
Less expensive, low-grade crude oils, which are higher in metals and sulfur
content, and must be heated to become fluid, are known as heavy.

Light crude has a low viscosity and because it has low wax content, it is a
liquid at room temperature. These properties make it easy to pump and
extract. Light oil constitutes approximately 30% of the worlds petroleum
reserves.

HYDROCARBON CATEGORIES:
The hydrocarbons in crude oil can generally be divided into four categories:

Paraffins: These can make up 15 to 60% of crude and have a carbon to

hydrogen ratio of 1:2, which means they contain twice the amount of
hydrogen as they do carbon. These are generally straight or branched chains,
but never cyclic (circular) compounds. Paraffins are the desired content in
crude and what are used to make fuels. The shorter the paraffins are, the
lighter the crude is.

Napthenes: These can make up 30 to 60% of crude and have a carbon to

hydrogen ratio of 1:2. These are cyclic compounds and can be thought of as
cycloparaffins. They are higher in density than equivalent paraffins and are
more viscous.

Aromatics: These can constitute anywhere from 3 to 30% of crude. They are
undesirable because burning them results in soot. They have a much less
hydrogen in comparison to carbon than is found in paraffins. They are also
more viscous. They are often solid or semi-solid when an equivalent paraffin
would be a viscous liquid under the same conditions.

Asphaltics: These average about 6% in most crude. They have a carbon to

hydrogen ratio of approximately 1:1, making them very dense. They are
generally undesirable in crude, but their 'stickiness' makes them excellent for
use in road construction.

COMPOSITION:
A single barrel of crude oil can produces the following components, which are
listed by percent of the barrel they constitute.

42% Gasoline

22% Diesel

9% Jet Fuel

5% Fuel Oil

4% Liquefied Petroleum Gases

18% Other products

OCTANE NUMBER COMPOSITION:
Isomerization is capable of saturating Benzene and can be incorporated into a
variety of processing schemes to upgrade low octane C5/C6 streams to
products with octane ranging from 80 RONC up to 93 RONC. There are three
common options:

Hydrocarbon Once-through the light naphtha passes through the

isomerization reactor only once. Normal paraffins are converted to iso
paraffins but the conversion is limited by equilibrium. Typical product octanes
are in the 80-84 RONC range.

Isomerization/DIH A de-isohexanizer is used to recover and recycle

unconverted normal hexane and low octane hexane isomers to the reactor
system. RONC values of 87-89 can be achieved.

DIP/Isomerization/Super DIH Using a de-isopentanizer upstream of the

Isomerization reactor to remove isopentane and a de-ioshexanizer
downstream to recover and recycle low octane hexanes, RONC values of 90-
93 can be achieved.
REFERENCES:
1) http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=6970

2)
http://pascagoula.chevron.com/abouttherefinery/whatwedo/typesofcrudeoil.a
spx

3) http://www.petroleum.co.uk/classification

4) https://www.uop.com/processing-solutions/refining/gasoline/naphtha-
isomerization/

5) https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadRashidUsman1/petroleum-refinery-
engineeringpart230july2016