Why Choose Crude Oil Distillation & Desalting Operations Training Course?
Crude oil desalting and atmospheric distillation form the front end of almost every petroleum refinery. Their reliability and operating efficiency directly influence downstream unit performance, product yields, energy consumption, corrosion rates and overall refinery profitability.
Effective desalting removes salts, water, sediments and other contaminants that can cause corrosion, fouling, catalyst poisoning and equipment damage. The atmospheric distillation unit must then separate the prepared crude into valuable fractions while maintaining product quality, maximising recovery and operating safely within equipment and process constraints.
This Crude Oil Distillation & Desalting Operations Training Course provides a comprehensive understanding of crude oil characteristics, desalting principles and crude distillation operations. It examines process equipment, operating variables, heat integration, fractionation control, troubleshooting and performance optimisation. Participants will learn how to identify operational problems, interpret process data and implement improvements that enhance reliability, energy efficiency and product recovery.
What are the Goals?
By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:
- Explain the composition and key properties of different crude oils
- Describe the complete crude oil processing and distillation sequence
- Evaluate the effects of crude contaminants on refinery operations
- Optimise desalter temperature, pressure, wash water and electrical conditions
- Improve salt, water and solids removal from crude oil
- Explain atmospheric distillation tower separation principles
- Control product quality, cut points and fractionation performance
- Identify and troubleshoot common desalting and distillation problems
- Reduce corrosion, fouling, energy losses and operating instability
- Improve crude unit reliability, safety and profitability
Who is this Training Course for?
This training course is suitable for:
- Crude Distillation Unit operators and supervisors
- Refinery process and operations engineers
- Production and shift engineers
- Process control and instrumentation engineers
- Refinery maintenance and reliability personnel
- Inspection, corrosion and integrity engineers
- Laboratory and product-quality personnel
- Energy optimisation and technical-services teams
- Graduate engineers and technical professionals entering refinery operations
How will this Training Course be Presented?
The course combines technical presentations with process diagrams, operating examples, equipment illustrations, calculation exercises, troubleshooting workshops and practical case studies. Participants will analyse actual operating scenarios and develop corrective actions for common desalting and crude distillation problems.
The Course Content
- Composition, classification and origins of crude oil
- Crude oil assays and key physical and chemical properties
- API gravity, viscosity, sulphur, acidity and pour point
- Light, medium, heavy, sweet and sour crude oils
- Crude contaminants: salts, water, sediments and metals
- Impact of crude quality on refinery selection and profitability
- Crude blending, compatibility and stability considerations
- Overview of refinery crude processing and product streams
- Purpose and importance of crude oil desalting
- Sources and types of salts in crude oil
- Formation, stability and breaking of crude oil emulsions
- Single-stage and two-stage electrostatic desalting systems
- Desalter equipment, internals and electrical systems
- Wash-water quality, quantity and injection practices
- Effects of temperature, pressure, mixing and residence time
- Measuring desalter efficiency and salt-removal performance
- Optimising mixing-valve differential pressure
- Controlling the crude-water interface and emulsion layer
- Selection and application of demulsifier chemicals
- Causes of high salt and basic sediment and water content
- Troubleshooting unstable interfaces and poor water separation
- Resolving desalter carryover, oil undercarry and rag-layer formation
- Preventing corrosion, fouling and wastewater-system upsets
- Practical desalter performance improvement workshop
- Fundamentals of vapour-liquid equilibrium and fractionation
- Crude preheat train, heat exchangers and heat integration
- Fired-heater design, operation and combustion control
- Atmospheric distillation column equipment and internals
- Flash zone, stripping sections, side draws and pump-around circuits
- Overhead system, reflux control and heat removal
- Production of naphtha, kerosene, diesel and atmospheric gas oil
- Controlling product cut points, yields and specifications
- Key operating variables affecting tower performance
- Temperature, pressure, reflux and steam control
- Recognising flooding, weeping, entrainment and foaming
- Troubleshooting off-specification distillate products
- Crude preheat-train fouling and exchanger performance
- Heater efficiency, tube coking and high-stack-temperature problems
- Overhead corrosion, salt deposition and water-dew-point control
- Optimising energy consumption, product recovery and unit throughput
Certificate
- AZTech Certificate of Completion for delegates who attend and complete the training course
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