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White Paper: Battling Corrosion In Refineries With The Power Of In-Line Analysis
Corrosion in refinery operations has been, and still is, the subject of many studies, papers, courses and web forums. Although a lot of what has been written shows that significant progress in understanding corrosion has been made, it also makes it clear that the problem continues to exist and that quite possibly is getting worse.
It is estimated that the global costs of refinery corrosion are in the order of 15 billion USD annually. Getting more exact numbers is not possible as refineries do not make available the extent of their corrosion problems, which is understandable considering the ever increasing environmental legislation they face. It is worth mentioning that in these costs, profit losses and loss of production uptime have not been taken into account. An analysis report by NACE International states that in the USA alone annual profit losses due to refinery corrosion may be as high as 12 billion USD!
Corrosion costs the world refinery industry billions of dollars annually. Although one of the major contributors to corrosion is the pH value of process water, pH measurements in oil refinery service have acquired a bad reputation due to their poor ability to measure in the aggressive environment they have to contend with. When the correct equipment is chosen however, in-line pH measurement and control facilities have proven to be of great value in reducing plant-wide corrosion, and the consumption of chemicals such as pH control reagents and corrosion inhibitors. This not only results in significant cost savings but also in increased earnings through increased process uptime.
Advances in sensor technology and intelligent automation of the measurement point, enable pH measurement in the most challenging refinery sour water environments. From that perspective an investment in pH control is highly recommended. The gain in refinery operating days and substantial savings allow for quick pay back of the pH control loop. Furthermore, partly eliminating one of the variables from the complex corrosion equation is a leap toward better understanding of the corrosion mechanism.
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