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Energy efficiency to increase production and quality of products in industrial processes: case study oil and gas processing center

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Abstract

The emphasis of this paper is to show the existence of some non-energy benefits that can be taken into account in an energy efficiency investment aimed to reduce energy consumption and increase production and product quality in an oil and gas processing center (OGPC) in México. The function of OGPC is to separate crude oil, gas, and saltwater coming from marine and terrestrial oil fields. Traditionally, application of process energy integration techniques has been aimed to reduce energy consumption associated with heating and cooling services. In this paper, the process energy integration (standard pinch analysis) of an OGPC shows the possibility of reducing natural gas and electricity consumption by 75 % and 98 %, respectively. However, the novel aspect of this work is the identifications and use of some waste heat streams available in processes to reduce energy consumption, and more importantly couple them with some non-energy-related benefits to produce massive economical savings. For example, by allowing an improvement in the quality of heavy crude oil for exportation (reduction in salt content), an increased sale price of 0.6 USD/barrel is achieved, rising profit to 156.88 MMUSD/year. Additional economic benefits came from the restauration of the production of 3,711 barrel of naphtha per day (33.86 MMUSD/year), by solving security issues related to the use of direct-fire heaters in the condensate stabilization plant.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Pemex Exploración y Producción for the process data supplied.

Funding

Financial support of this project was from the Instituto Nacional de Electricidad y Energías Limpias, Mexico.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. XY2 Instituto Tecnológico de Mérida, Av. Tecnológico km 4.5 S/N, C.P, 97118, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Alejandro M. Arriola-Medellín

  2. Pemex Logística, Villa Hermosa, Mexico

    Luis F. López-Cisneros

  3. Instituto Nacional de Electricidad y Energías Limpias, Cuernavaca, Mexico

    Alfonso Aragón-Aguilar, César A. Romo-Millares & Manuel F. Fernández-Montiel

Authors
  1. Alejandro M. Arriola-Medellín
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  2. Luis F. López-Cisneros
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  3. Alfonso Aragón-Aguilar
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  4. César A. Romo-Millares
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  5. Manuel F. Fernández-Montiel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alejandro M. Arriola-Medellín.

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Highlights

• Non-energy benefits have been analyzed to improve the financial attractiveness of energy efficiency investments

• Energy analysis can be aimed not only to reduce energy consumption but also to increase product quality and production

• Waste heat recovery potentials are exploited in the context of full thermal integration of an oil and gas processing center.

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Arriola-Medellín, A.M., López-Cisneros, L.F., Aragón-Aguilar, A. et al. Energy efficiency to increase production and quality of products in industrial processes: case study oil and gas processing center. Energy Efficiency 12, 1619–1634 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09803-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09803-0

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