Gas Processing Oil Refining

Natural gas and crude oil must be processed or refined before being used by the final consumer. They both come out of the ground as complex hydrocarbon mixtures that need to be treated before they are turned into the natural gas that feeds our homes and industries, the fuels that power our vehicles, the asphalts that pave our roads, and thousands of other products that are made from petrochemicals.

Natural gas processing plants are complex, but they generally have four main processes for removing impurities before the majority is sent to the consumer as pipeline quality dry natural gas.

1. Remove oil and condensates
2. Remove water
3. Separate the natural gas liquids from the natural gas
4. Remove sulfur and carbon dioxide

Oil refiners turn crude oil into transportation fuels, fertilizers, petrochemicals, lubricants, wax, asphalt, and many other products. Refined products undergo multiple processing steps. Since every refinery is unique, process unit size and type vary widely from refinery to refinery. However, all refineries have distillation units that separate crude oil by boiling point.
Other key refining processes:

• Remove contaminants from the crude oil,
• Combine short chain hydrocarbons,
• Break apart long chain hydrocarbons, and
• Blend processed streams.

Major Products From Crude Oil

Oil refining is generally found near either oil production or a site with easy access to transportation. Access is important for receiving crude oil and for transporting products. Texas and Louisiana refine the largest volume of crude oil in the U.S.

Natural gas and oil are consumed in all sectors of the economy. Although the industrial sector still accounts for the biggest share of U.S. natural gas consumption, gas demand for electric power generation is the fastest-growing sector of the Nation’s gas market.

Crude oil products provide 97% of our transportation fuel, and transportation fuels are the primary product of refineries.

NETL oil refining research is focused on improving the efficiency of America’s refineries to overcome capacity constraints and enhancing their ability to cost-effectively upgrade lower-quality crude oils, particularly heavy (highly viscous) crudes.

Key to achieving these goals is the development of new technologies for upgrading heavy crudes and residual products while reducing environmental impacts. Another area of emphasis in NETL refining research is the promulgation of new environmental data, based on sound science, that could lead to streamlined regulations.

Such efforts to bolster the efficiencies of domestic refineries, at a time when severe capacity constraints can have far-reaching economic consequences, are an important component of the Nation’s energy security.

NETL research in gas processing emphasizes developing cost-effective technologies for upgrading low-quality natural gas resources into a useable pipeline-quality commodity.

Overcoming the challenges of monetizing this extensive but underexploited resource could add trillions of cubic feet of reserves to U.S. natural gas supply.

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