crude-oil-assay


Geo Chem Middle East has been offering crude assay for the past twenty years. A service which demands the most up-to-date sophisticated technology and instrumentation coupled with highly experienced and trained personnel, Geo Chem is fully equipped and confident to meet our customer’s expectation in this field of testing.

 

 

A crude assay is essentially a detailed chemical evaluation of a crude oil feedstock sample conducted by a petroleum testing laboratory. A crude assay takes the guess work out of the equation by simulating refinery distillation conditions to help those make informed decisions regarding what a specific crude oil will yield before it enters the refinery process.

Our industry uses Crude Assay information in a number of different ways:

·         To establish the compatibility of a crude oil to that of a particular petroleum refinery.

·         To help refiners to make decisions about changes in plant operation, development of product

·         schedules, and examination of future processing ventures.

·         To anticipate if the crude oil will fulfill the required product yield, quality, and production specs.

·         To determine if refining the crude oil will meet national, state and local environmental emission standards.

·         To set the price of a newly discovered crude oil reserve and maintain the price of an older one.

·         To supply engineering companies with detailed crude oil analyses to help them design their  petroleum refining plant processes.

·         To help negotiate possible penalties due to impurities and other non-desired properties in  purchased crude oil.

 

The assay test can be limited to know the various fractions yield or extensive by the

characterization of the whole crude and its fractions. The various fractions expected from a normal stabilized crude oil are LPG, Light Naphtha, Heavy Naphtha, Kerosene, Gas Oil and Residual Fuel Oil. A single distillation may not be sufficient to produce the required volume to complete the characterization of each commercially interested fraction. ASTM D 2892 is the standard method employed for the TBP distillation.

 Crude oil composition is not identical and its characteristics may vary significantly from one crude oil reservoir to another source. A crude oil assay helps to estimate the crude oil feed stock yields of fractions at various boiling ranges. The true boiling point test data available from the laboratory on specific crude oil batches relates the refiners to decide the commercial value as well as for the detailed refinery engineering.