GE unveils chemical crude stabilizers for refineries

GE on Wednesday announced two new products to help refineries process incompatible crude oil blends. 

Unlike many traditional asphaltene dispersants, GE says its new EmBreak 2167 and EmBreak 2168 crude stabilizers are ashless and do not contain any metals that could contribute to catalyst contamination or equipment fouling.

These new oil-based crude stabilizers are a part of GE's patent-pending technology that can be used specifically in refinery desalters and other oil and water separation equipment. They are part of GE's family of EmBreak emulsion breakers, which offer a full suite of products that span the entire range of crudes, delivering superior desalter performance and potentially reducing total costs of operation.

Being ashless and metal free is a benefit to downstream units and prevents fouling and poisoning, according to company officials.

"Being able to process discounted crude oils depends on the other crudes that they are blended with, and that is where EmBreak 2167 and 2168 come into the picture," said Buzz Barlow, global general manager, hydrocarbon process—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. 

"GE developed a testing methodology to predict crude oil incompatibility and created innovative chemical crude stabilizer solutions to help successfully process these incompatible crude oils," he added.

GE says the  new crude stabilizers help refineries more effectively anticipate and respond to processing issues associated with opportunity crudes and their incompatibility. Incompatible crude blends may precipitate asphaltenes or other heavy molecular weight aliphatics resulting in uncontrolled emulsions, which can cause poor effluent brine quality as well as deteriorating salt and solids removal efficiency.