Crude-oil Producer

Electricity is one of most basic and important form of distributed energy.
Anyone living in a large village or a town deserves availability of electrical power even when there is no general distribution grid.
Local distribution grid and local power generation unit may be the right economical choice.

When crude oil is locally extracted, electricity local production is a priority.

Simplified Flow Scheme:

Diesel Engine Power Generator

Diesel Engine Power Generator
For small and medium size units, diesel engine powered genset is convenient.
For efficiency diesel engine is the good choice.
For the overall simplicity and investment optimization diesel engine directly fueled with crude oil is advisable.

When local crude oil is available, local processing for oil products or power production for local consumption should be a priority, after feasibility check.

Mini Refinery

To decrease transport costs of exported crude oil and transport costs of imported oil products, it is profitable to process local crude oil at production site, as feasible, and produce oil products for local demand.
To decrease oil slick, oil spill risks and protect environment it is advisable to process local crude oil at site production,  and produce oil products for local demand.
Local crude oil processing also decrease greenhouse gases production during transport of exported crude oil and transport of imported oil products.

The “mini-refinery” is the “topping unit” in conventional  refinery. It is a distillation unit that recovers the “straight run cuts” from the crude oil feed. Main products obtained:
* Heavy fuel-oil
* Motor Diesel-oil
* Kerosene (for lighting)
* LPG
Another product , naphtha, is produced but is not a common commercial product and has to be considered separately.

When several local crude oils are available, a technical and commercial feasibility study has to be done to optimize the choice of crude oil to be processed  and material balance and flow scheme to adopt.

Profitable Oil Topping Association to Power Generator

The purpose of mini-refinery / power genset association is to add maximum value to local crude oil processing  in addition to electricity production to cover the local need.
Characteristics:
* Very simple plant
* Simple operation
* Utilities and ancillaries minimized
* Only one feedstock: local crude-oil
* Mini-refinery production follows exactly genset fuel demand and by-products are not accumulated.
* High value oil product (diesel-oil, for instance) is exported as produced, without large storage need.

When producing local crude oil, it is possible to produce electricity, fueling directly a diesel genset with that crude oil.

It is also possible to add more value to the local crude oil with an associated mini-refinery processing the local crude oil:
* Extracting a high value part from the crude oil for export to cover local demand: Motor Diesel Oil
* Delivering crude oil by-products for electricity generation.

Typical 20 MW Genset Feasibility :

20 MW Power Genset without MINI-REFINERY

20 MW Power Genset with MINI-REFINERY

Beginning February 2011 oil products quotations give following results:
WTI crude oil: #  91 $ / Bbl   &  Brent crude oil: # 101 $ / Bbl
Average crude oil cost:96 $ / Bbl  # 710 $ /T
MGO, Singapore place: # 850 $ / T

FUEL cost to GENSET per YEAR:
* WITHOUT Mini-refinery
96*670*330 # 21.2 million US $
* WITH Mini-refinery
Crude to buy:
96*1000*330 # 31.7 million US $
GO to sell:
850*2*24*330 # 13.5 million US $
Fuel to Genset:
31.7 – 13.5 # 18.2 million US $
* Final Profit per year
21.2 – 18.2 # 3 million US $ / Year

CONCLUSION

The final result for a real project is depending on many parameters among which:
* General project environment
* Local crude oil detail analysis
* Gas-oil product characteristics
* ….
In this typical example of 20 MW diesel genset burning initially a typical crude oil, the addition of a mini-refinery could mean:
Value added by Mini-Refinery processing local crude-oil:
# 3 million US $ / Year
Mini Refinery Pay-Out # 2 Years