Marathon Oil Case Study

There are three factors that can be tuned to affect optimal performance, equipment optimization, operating procedures, and control optimization. Proving the current equipment is working to its fullest benefit is vital to Identify equipment bottlenecks and should be step one in optimizing a process. According to Mustang and Hanna (Doctor & Mustang, 2010), refinery crude processing positions on crude with all impurities as input. Step by step it tries to reduce impurities by changing it to less harmful component or remove after converting to separable component using the following processes (Technologies

Services): Desalted unit washes out salt from the crude OLL before It enters the atmospheric distillation unit.

Atmospheric distillation unit distills crude oil into fractions. See Continuous distillation. Vacuum distillation unit further distills residual bottoms after atmospheric distillation. Naphtha hydrogenate unit uses hydrogen to disulfide naphtha from atmospheric distillation. Must hydrometer the naphtha before sending to a catalytic Reformer unit. Catalytic reformer unit Is used to convert the naphtha-boiling range molecules into higher octane reformat (reformer product).

The reformat has higher content of aromatics and cyclic hydrocarbons). An Important byproduct of a reformer Is hydrogen released during the catalyst reaction. The hydrogen Is used either in the hydrogenates or the hydrochloric. Distillate hydrogenate unit disfigures distillates (such as diesel) after atmospheric distillation. Fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) unit upgrades heavier fractions into lighter, more valuable products. Hydrochloric unit uses hydrogen to upgrade heavier fractions Into lighter, more valuable products.

Blarneying unit upgrades heavy residual oils by thermally cracking them into lighter, more valuable educed viscosity products. Emmer unit treats LIP, kerosene or Jet fuel by oxidation merchantman to organic disulfide. Coking units (delayed coking, fluid Cooker, and flickered) process very heavy residual oils Into gasoline and diesel fuel, leaving petroleum coke as a residual product. Allocation unit produces high-octane component for gasoline blending. Demarcation unit converts olefins into higher- octane gasoline blending components. For example, butane’s can be admired into Associate which may subsequently be hydrogenated to form Associate.

There are also other uses for demarcation. Commiseration unit converts linear molecules to higher-octane branched molecules for blending into gasoline or feed to allocation 1 OFF units steam retorting unlit produces narrower Tort ten northeasters or Liquefied gas storage units store propane and similar gaseous fuels at pressure sufficient to maintain them in liquid form.

These are usually spherical vessels or bullets (horizontal vessels with rounded ends. Storage tanks store crude oil and finished products, usually cylindrical, with some sort of vapor emission control and surrounded by an earthen beer to contain spills. Slug catcher used when product (crude oil and gas) that comes from a pipeline with two-phase flow, has to be buffered at the entry of the units.

Amine gas theater, Claus unit, and tail gas treatment convert hydrogen sulfide from hydroelectricity’s into elemental sulfur.

Utility units such as cooling towers circulate cooling water, boiler plants generates steam, and instrument air systems include pneumatically operated control valves and an electrical substation. Wastewater collection and treating systems consist of API separators, dissolved air flotation (DAFT) units and further treatment units such s an activated sludge bitterer to make water suitable for reuse or for disposal. Solvent refining units use solvent such as cresol or formula to remove unwanted, mainly asphalting materials from lubricating oil stock or diesel stock. Solvent deigning units remove the heavy waxy constituents’ petrolatum from vacuum distillation products.

Chief oil corporations consist of difficult crude oils with high levels of impurities in most of the reserves. Sulfur is a consideration for influencing the price of crude oil and a formative factor in refinery processing cost, separate from additional infrastructure expenditures. The crude oil cleansing process is cost beneficial because the sulfur content of oil placed in the pipelines is taxed so there is great concentration in removing the sulfur before it enters the pipeline.

Crude oil cleaning is an original stand-alone procedure that can be deployed at the oil production or terminal site to avoid the price penalty for high sulfur crude transport and significantly decrease the refinery financial load for De-sulfuring higher sulfur crude (Doctor & Mustang, 2010). Crude Oil Quality Improvement (COCO) offers Just that recess. COCO process has the possibility to transform the oil industry, fulfilling the provisions for clean burning low sulfur fuels, and shrink the colossal economic stress on equally on upstream and downstream oil processors (Doctor & Mustang, 2010).

Simulation and initial study present confidence of reducing sulfur by average 75 % by weight. COCO@ technology removes sulfur with complex molecules selectively from crude oil which are generally high boiling sulfur compound. Lower boiling sulfur compounds are separated and treated. COCO@ technology incorporates complex alteration of sulfur compounds and separates sulfur from crude mainly in gaseous form. This makes removal of sulfur easy and disposal in traditional refinery way (Doctor & Mustang, 2010).

Discuss the relationship between the retail price of gasoline and the price of crude oil.

Marathon distributes more than 111 million gallons of crude oil and petroleum products daily through its pipelines (Marathon_Pipe_Line_LLC). Frequently developing technology satellite communications and High-speed computers allows for monitoring and controlling its many pipeline systems around the U. S. From a lone control center Marathon_Pipe_Line_LLC). If the control loop is not accurately designed and adjusted, the process does not run at its finest, thus the processes become more expensive to operate.

This creates a higher price for the consumer.

The extensive mean, particularly In ten developing world, wall Keep prices on ten roles. Prices nave also been lifted by a weaker dollar, which continues to weaken against the Euro and the pound. With 10% unemployment, less people are buying gasoline to get back and forth work. Without the commute, refiners have been prompted to mothball more than 20%of their capacity, keeping more fuel off the market.

When there are increases in crude prices it makes its way to the pump Retailers raised the prices to raise their profit margins (Harvests, 2007).

Another issue behind the rise in gas prices is higher prices for ethanol. There are mandates requiring certain amounts of ethanol to be sold mixed in with gasoline. Explain what Marathon could do to keep the price at the pump the same without losing profits if the price of crude increased 10%. Oil resources once deemed out of practical reach can be made available for processing so that the resulting fuels burn cleanly. Once crude has been produced, his process can act as a desirable refinery pre-treatment, removing much of the sulfur, nitrogen, wax and metals.

Besides enhancing the overall efficiency of the refining process, this action has a positive impact on factors that can contribute to global climate change, reducing green house. (Technologies Services) In June 2010, President Obama imposed a six month deep water drilling moratorium. If the US government prohibits deep water drilling off the US coast, discuss how the US oil companies can remain competitive in the US market when over 35% of crude oil is currently sourced from domestic deep water drilling. The impact of the moratorium will deeply impact any large producer in the gulf.