You can download Offshore Safety Case Training at http://www.scribd.com/doc/5052863/Offshore-Safety-Case-Training-ppt

This is presentation can be used to train safety training to offshore operator personnel to convey a strong message: “If the safety systems are not operated and maintained well, then major accidents can happen”

Other links:

Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (H.U.E.T.)

Offshore Safety Performance Management.doc

Offshore Technical Safety FAQ

Insights Into ESSA

Offshore QRA Checklist

Bow Ties and Offshore Safety Studies

Explosion Riks-Battery Rooms

Sample Electrical safety Training Programme

Work At Height Survey

Oil is pumped from deep underground and under seas. Once it has been collected, it is transported to a refinery where it is turned into useful products for customers. A barrel of crude oil is 42-gallons. From this, regulations force refineries to turn at least 50 percent into gasoline. Crude oil from each reservoir has certain characteristics. They are classified by the density and sulfur amounts in the oil. Reservoirs with less dense crude produce more valued products. A less dense or ‘lighter’ crude requires much less work and therefore has a better price margin.

Once crude oil is at the refinery there are a large number of various methods used to distill the crude oil. A simple description of a refinery is a large distillation plant where distillation, conversion and treating take place. Crude oil is not useful in its raw state and must be refined into usable petroleum products. Oil contains hydrocarbons of varying lengths. These lengths allow refineries to break apart the crude to collect streams of products such as diesel, kerosene, gasoline and petroleum gas.

Oil refining begins with distillation. The tall columns that are seen in a refinery complex have catch trays at various levels inside. Crude is pumped in and heated. The lightest materials such as propane and butane go to the highest point. Medium weight materials stay in the middle areas and the heaviest materials stay low never the bottom. The temperatures in the distillation chambers are control using computer systems to get the maximum amounts from the crude. Once the various products coalesce into liquid form, they are sent through different pipes for different refining techniques.

The next step most products go through is conversion. This is the where most components become useful and the refinery makes money. The liquids from the medium and heavy ranges are first treated with hydrogen to remove as many contaminants as possible. One of the most common conversion processes is cracking. Cracking involves breaking or ‘cracking’ the hydrocarbon chains in the oil. This allows the medium and heavy fluids to be converted to high-end light densities where the most useful products are. There are two common methods of cracking, Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC) and Hydrocracking. Fluid catalytic cracking uses temperatures around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, low pressure and a powdered catalyst to break apart the heavy mixture into gasoline. Hydrocracking uses a different catalyst, lower temperatures and higher pressure to make gasoline and jet fuel. Other conversion processes used are combining and rearranging. Since most gasoline from these processes does not have enough octane to burn in automobiles, it is rearranged to form high-octane gasoline.

All petroleum products contain impurities such as nitrogen and sulfur. The treating process removes these compounds to produce cleaner burning fuels, which reduces air pollution. Hydrotreating is a milder form of hydrocracking and is used to remove impurities. The final process is blending. Most gasoline is a blend of various treated components. These blends vary from state to state depending on regulations.

Source: www.essortment.com

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 6 — Petrovietnam plans to sell a 49% stake in its Dung Quat refinery, which is scheduled to go online in February (OGJ Online, Dec. 11, 2008).

“Petrovietnam would appraise the refinery’s value and negotiate with foreign partners before selling the stake,” said Petrovietnam chairman Dinh La Thang.

The Vietnamese firm, which plans to give preference to international partners committed to supplying oil to the refinery, is expected to begin talks with BP PLC next week.

Dinh said the negotiations would focus on price and quality, and the possibility that BP would provide at least 50% of the total oil for the refinery.

Petrovietnam has decided to import oil for the refinery as Vietnam’s own oil and gas reserves are limited and could earn the country more revenue as an export because they are of higher quality than that required by the new facility.

The Dung Quat refinery is about 98% complete, according to Dinh Van Ngoc, deputy general director of the Binh Son Petrochemical Co., which manages the refinery.

Dinh said the refinery’s capacity would stand at 50% in February, but would increase to 100% by yearend, when it will process some 6.5 million tonnes of oil.

Via: ogj.comn

A refinery is a factory. A refinery takes a raw material (crude oil) and transforms it into petrol and hundreds of other useful products. A typical large refinery costs billions of pounds to build and millions more to run and upgrade. It runs around the clock 365 days a year, employs  hundreds of people and occupies as much land as several hundred football pitches.

A REFINERY breaks crude oil down into its various components, which then are selectively changed into new products. This process takes place inside a maze of pipes and vessels. The refinery is operated from a highly automated control room.

All refineries perform three basic steps:

• Separation (fractional distillation)
• Conversion (cracking and rearranging the molecules)
• Treatment

Separation: fractional distillation

Modern separation involves piping crude oil through hot furnaces. The resulting liquids and vapours are passed into distillation towers:-

		FRACTION	B Pt  oC	Number of carbons	Uses
		»Refinery gas		1-4	Bottled gas, fuels
		»Petrol	40	~8	Fuel for cars
		»Naptha	110	~10	Raw material for chemicals and plastics.
		»Kerosine	180	~15	Fuel for Aeroplanes
		»Diesel	250	~20	Fuel for cars and lorries
		»Oils	340	~35	Fuel for Power Stations, Lubricants and grease
Hot crude »		»Bitumen	400+	40+	Road surfacing.

• It is important to realise that the column is hot at the bottom and cool at the top.
• The crude oil separates into fractions according to weight and boiling point.
• The lightest fractions, including petrol and liquid petroleum gas (LPG), vapourise and rise to the top of the tower.
• Kerosine (aviation fuel) and diesel oil, stay in the middle of the tower
• Heavier liquids separate lower down.
• The heaviest fractions with the highest boiling points settle at the very bottom.

TRENDS AS WE UP AND DOWN THE COLUMN

The following table shows how the behaviour of the hydrocarbon molecules alter:

The fractions are now ready for piping to the next areas within the refinery. Some fractions require very little additional processing. However, most molecules require much more processing to become high-value products.

Conversion: cracking and rearranging molecules Some fractions from the distillation towers need to be transformed into new components . This is where a refinery makes money, because the low-value fractions that aren’t in great demand can be converted to petrol and other useful chemicals.

The most widely used conversion method is called cracking because it uses heat and pressure to “crack” heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter ones. A cracking unit consists of one or more tall, thick-walled, reactors and a network of furnaces, heat exchangers and other vessels. Catalytic cracking, or “cat cracking,” is the basic petrol-making process. Using intense heat (about 600°C), low pressure and a powdered catalyst (a substance that speeds up a  chemical reaction), the cat cracker can convert most of the heavy fractions into smaller more useful molecules. Some refineries also have cokers, which use heat and moderate pressure to turn the really heavy fractions into lighter products and a hard, coal like substance that is used as an industrial fuel. Cracking and coking are not the only forms of conversion. Other refinery processes, instead of splitting molecules, rearrange them to add value. Alkylation makes petrol components by combining some of the gaseous byproducts of cracking. The process, which essentially is cracking in reverse, takes place in a series of large, horizontal vessels.

Reforming uses heat, moderate pressure and catalysts to turn naphtha into high-octane petrol.

Treatment: the finishing touch

Today, a major portion of refining involves blending, purifying, fine-tuning and improving products to meet specific requirements. To make  petrol, refinery workers carefully blend together a variety of hydrocarbons. Technicians also add performance additives and dyes that distinguish the various grades of fuel. By the time the petrol is pumped into a car it contains more than 200 hydrocarbons and additives.

Example: Petrol companies produce different blends of fuels to suit the weather. In winter, they put in more volatile hydrocarbons (with short carbon chains) and in summer they add less volatile hydrocarbons to compensate for the higher temperatures.

Source:http://www.moorlandschool.co.uk/earth/oilrefinery.htm

Crude oil, natural gas and coal are fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are very precious resources because they are non-renewable (once they’re used, that’s it!). We can also make lots of organic chemicals from them, needed to make products such as paints, detergents, polymers (including plastics), cosmetics and some medicines.

Fossil fuels were formed from the fossillized remains of dead plants and animals that once lived millions of years ago. Oil and natural gas are the products of the deep burial and decomposition of dead plants and animals. Heat and pressure, in the absence of oxygen, transform the decomposed material into tiny pockets of gas and crude oil. The oil and gas then migrates through the pores in the rocks to eventually collect in reservoirs.

Coal comes mainly from dead plants which have been buried and compacted beneath sediments. Most coal originated as peat in ancient swamps created many millions of years ago.

What is crude oil?

Crude oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons with small amounts of other chemicals such as sulphur. The crude oil is useless as a mixture and must be sent to an oil refinery to be separated. Crude oils from different parts of the world, or even from different depths in the same oilfield, contain different mixtures of hydrocarbons and other compounds. This is why they vary from light coloured volatile liquids to thick, dark oils.

What is natural gas?

Natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbons with small molecules. These molecules are made of atoms of carbon and hydrogen. For example, natural gas used in the home is mainly methane, CH 4.

What is a hydrocarbon?

Hydrocarbons only contain hydrogen and carbon atoms. There are two main chemical families of hydrocarbons – the alkanes and the alkenes. Thousands of synthetic products can be manufactured from hydrocarbons with many different properties.

Source:http://www.moorlandschool.co.uk/earth/earthresources.htm