1 reply to this topic

[jlc209]

Hi,

 

Does anyone here have experience mixing high-pour & low-pour crudes in non-heated tanks? 

 

At my site, sometimes we spill over up to 30% (of total tank vol) of high-pour crudes into non-heated tanks that already contains low-pour crudes. This happens whenever there is a tankage constraint in other heated tanks. High-pour crudes pour point can go up to 45 Deg C.

 

We will do the mixing as long as the blended pour points are below 21 Deg C.

 

Our typical non-heated tank temperatures range from 30 - 35 Deg C.

 

However, in the past one year we have been observing sludge clogging up the bottom drain of these non-heated tanks, which makes tank draining challenging at times.

 

I'm still figuring out whether this sludge is due to the mixing of high-pour & low-pour crudes, or due to asphaltene formation from mixing incompatible crudes.

 

However, occasionally we have also spilled over low-pour crudes into heated tanks containing high-pour crudes, but we do not observe the same sludge issue in the heated tanks. During this mode of mixing the steam coils are turned off, but the tank temperatures are still quite high at approx. 40 Deg C.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

[gegio1960]

stability tests will provide you the required info..

good luck!