Drag reduction refined

[Gilles12]

Good morning,

Hope you are doing well
I work in refined product pipeline operations and I am looking for standards and guide for the use and removal of drag reduction agents.

Gilles

 

[0707]

go to

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/drag-reducing-agent

 

[LittleInch]

Use - see "black magic"....

removal - just run it through another pump or a control valve. That breaks up the minute amount of liquid.

You really need to be trying to operate above about 2.5m/sec to make it worth it though - this stuff costs an absolute fortune ad is a continuous injection.

Good luck on trying to get a price out of anyone until they think you're serious.

If you give a bit more information, you'll get more in return...

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[Gilles12]

Hi, dear LittleInch,

Thank you for your answer. I already discussed this with a DRA provider for a project of capacity increase but he did not convince me about removal issues (because of the injection in refined products).he told me that there are no standards on the use of these agents. So if anyone has already used these agents for the transport of refined products, could I have feedback on the impact on the quality of the products, especially for diesel and gasoline?

Gilles

 

[1503-44]

LittleInch is correct. If they experience moderate turbulence, they break down very easily. A pump or an inline turbulent mixer will break them up beyond recognition.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[georgeverghese]

Why would you want to use DRA for gasoline and diesel?. DRA works by action on wax components ( probably by emulsifying or dissolution) in the products. There is no wax in gasoline or diesel, so there wont be any effect in drag reduction from injecting this DRA. DRA is only used in paraffinic crudes with wax content.

 

[LittleInch]

George,

I beg to differ. Whilst it is good for some of the high wax, it has proved to be successful in gasoline and diesel before they tried it on waxy crudes.

DRA's appear to work by being long chain hydrocarbon molecules which reduce or calm down the surface transition layer. Usually the way to simulate it is to reduce roughness to a few micron to match performance to analysis.

They get injected at 10-20 ppm (I think) and last time I looked at it I worked out that it was more expensive than liquid gold so just as well you don't have to add much.

There are no standards per se for this stuff, but there are lots of past performance where there has been no impact on fuel quality.

But just ask for a trial amount, add it to a few m3 of product in the right proportion, run it through a pump and then test it.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[georgeverghese]

That new to me, we've only used these for petroleum streams in long distance pipelines with high mol wt paraffinic components. Okay.
These are so expensive, national OpCos have stopped using them after a few years. And rumours of internal scandals have been in the air, I wont elaborate.

 

[LittleInch]

Oh yes, these are not something you want to do for very long before either the volume flow rate goes down or you manage to build some booster pump stations or a bigger pipeline.

So good for 2-3 years, but anything more and you are literally pouring money away.

You need to be going pretty fast for it to make a significant difference for lighter H/Cs

I think the vendors got taken by surprise when it turned out the high wax crudes had such a big impact.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.