A Brief Note On Maritime Logistics Of Petroleum Products

The process of making synthetic crude oil requires an enormous amount of water, especially in the separation process. Each barrel of oil requires two tons of oil sands and up to five barrels of hot water. Water is also needed along with electricity to convert it steam. The steam is pushed by steam injections making bitumen less viscous. It is quite evident that oil sands are not practical in terms of its process. Also three-quarters of the bitumen can be recovered from the sands, leaving behind 25% as waste. With the technology in our present society, oil sands are not entirely practical in terms of efficiency; however, in the future, this may change. To reflect, there are many disadvantages associated with oil sands, especially in the way it is processed.

So what is this mysterious black gold substance that everyone refers to as crude oil? Basically, crude oil is a petroleum based substance that is naturally formed from plants and animals that roamed the Earth millions of years ago. These microorganisms settled deep within our Earth’s crust and comprises of numerous minerals, hydrocarbons, organic compounds and inconsequential traces of metals. Crude oil cannot just be drawn up from the ground and shoved into someone’s gas tank without first being refined

Middle East is strategically important region where mostly world half of oil reserves are located. Three countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran and United Arab Emirates accounted for 57% of total Middle East liquids fuels production. (Liquid fuels production in Middle Eastern and North African countries n.d.) Although due to increased domestic production of petroleum and natural gas, the United States is reducing its dependence on foreign oil with imported liquid fuels, but still oil means a lot to the US as oil prices is determined internationally by what is available for all global consumers. Therefore, to safeguard the security of Oil supply in the Middle East and ensure stable access to affordable oil is in the vital interest of the America. (Mexican crude oil shipments to Europe and Asia are rising as U.S. imports fall

The United States consumes more than 25% of the world’s petroleum products which is a large percentage, considering only 3% of the world’s oil reserves are produced by the United States. Given the demand for petroleum products such as gasoline, understanding why Crude oil prices have skyrocketed in recent years, is not hard. According to the article “Ending America’s Oil Addiction,” the surge in crude oil prices can be reduced in large part to the simple concepts of supply and demand. (Cooper, 2008)

Of the all the oil fields throughout Canada, 25% are offshore locations in Newfoundland. 8% comes from either BC or Ontario and 67% of all onshore oil fields are in Alberta, which is defined by the term “Oil Country”. From these locations, pipelines are used to transport liquid oil to refineries. It is at these refineries the process of being turned into gasoline, diesel, and petroleum takes place. After this process, petroleum products are sent to distribution centres.

A gas oil fraction from the distillation of crude oil contains hydrocarbons in the C15 to C19 range. These hydrocarbons can be cracked by strong heating.

Petroleum is a thick and flammable mixture of gaseous, liquid and solid hydrocarbons that occurs naturally beneath the earth’s surface. It can be separated into fractions including natural gas fuels, lubricating oils and so on. There are some major oil producing regions around the globe. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s crude oil fields are the largest. But in Texas, the former world’s major oil region is now almost completely dry. The real catalyst for petroleum production is World War I. It is being produced in large amount during the war. Petroleum is a commercial product in this modern era. Sometimes, petroleum and crude oil are used to mean the same thing, or in other words, petroleum products after crude oil is refined in a factory. There are

Canada is the fifth-biggest oil producer on the planet, and has been manufacturing traditional unrefined petroleum for over a century. Canada’s oil industry delivers more than 3.6 million barrels of oil every day and is a part of the worldwide crude oil market. Crude oil stands out as the most actively traded commodity in the world. As a result of this, oil prices change day by day in light of changing conditions that influence demand and supply. Oil meets nearly 40% of Canada’s overall energy requirements through a range of products made out of refining. All things considered, refining crude oil yields the subsequent assortment of products:

The importance of oil for armies did not decrease in the post-war period, but oil also became vital for industrialized societies in many other ways. Developed nations became dependent on motorized vehicles fuelled by oil products, not just for passenger transport but also for food production, health care, manufacturing, heating, and electricity generation. At the same time, most industrialized countries did not produce enough oil to satisfy their needs. Moreover, decolonization meant that oil was imported from independent nations rather than from politically dependent territories as before the war. Conversely, many of these developing countries also became dependent on oil export revenues for their economic development and political

Crude oil is a mixture of several different compounds made of mostly hydrogen and carbon.

The oil and gas industry is crucial to the U.S. economy and plays a central role in its environment, society, and economic development . The U.S. consumes more oil than any other country. Products derived from oil include medicine, recreational sports items, cosmetics, plastic, chemicals, transportation liquids, etc... This is to say, crude oil is the most important natural resource of the industrialized nations, as it has assisted in the technical expansion and discovery of new sources and production of existing oil fields (Wintershall, 2015).

Another type of refining is called polymerization, which is the opposite of cracking in that it combines the smaller molecules into bigger ones that then could be used as liquid fuels.

The crude oil is a combination of a lot of different chemicals, ranging from light gasoline types of fuels to waxes and tars. When you heat the crude oil, the gasoline and diesel oil boil off pretty early. Unfortunately, the mineral oil, paraffin, wax and tar molecules are all hooked up with each other, and it's not so easy to separate them from each other. Also, the crude oil contains the aforementioned aromatics, which are quite bad in your oil: they are very reactive, and when oxidized they cause all kinds of problems. Refining oil means trying to remove the bad stuff, while leaving the good stuff. The more bad stuff we remove, the better the oil works.

Using supercritical 'brine', such as the water found with typical oil reservoirs or seawater (14) is the key difference and what makes this unique. Based on the cited experimental work, heavy crude can be 'hydrocracked' more efficiently to make a medium to lighter crude in a relatively simple process. It has been demonstrated that in one step, sulfur is converted to H2S for easy separation, metals can be removed (25) and the heavy organic molecules are 'hydrocracked' to shorter chain compounds with less coking than obtained with conventional coking and hydrocracking methods.

Petroleum is naturally occurring yellow to black liquid found in geological formation beneath the earth surface which is then refined to get various fuels as petrol, diesel etc. It is derived from a Latin word “Petra” which means rock and “oleum” which means oil. Petroleum is generated in a source rock from which it migrates through a permeable and porous medium called the reservoir where it gets trapped by structures namely fault or cap rock. In present scenario, no doubt petroleum industry is governing world’s economy. The petroleum industry includes the processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting and marketing petroleum products. The industry is divided into three major streams which are upstream, midstream and downstream. Upstream mainly includes exploration and production of oil wells. Gathering, processing/refining, transportation and storage