Optimizing Desalter Performance is Just One of Tracerco's Specialties We Proudly Provide.

Desalter vessels are a refinery’s first line of defense to reduce the amount of unwanted salts present in the feed inventory. Prior to crude oil entering a refinery processing stream it undergoes a water washing stage where the water used during this process is separated using Desalter vessels. In these vessels the oil and water mixture separate from each other using gravity and high voltage coalescing plates. The water phase contains the washed salts as well as other suspended solids. Desalting and separation prevents water and salts from entering the crude unit furnaces, distillation towers and other downstream equipment. Salts, sediment, and other solids will foul the process and can undergo chemical change to produce corrosive chemicals that cause damage to process metallurgy. It is therefore important to efficiently separate wastewater from crude feedstock within the Desalter vessels.

Tracerco Tru-Scan™ technology provides you detailed data on where the oil/water interface level is, determines if there is a significant “rag” or emulsion layer or detects how many solids are built up in the bottom of the Desalter. In addition to performing these applications our advanced tracer studies are used to provide residence times of the oil and water phases and distribution within the vessel. Further to our scanning and tracer technologies that can aid plant personnel in optimizing your process, our award winning Tracerco Profiler™ HTX instrument provides accurate phase measurement including oil, emulsion (rag), water and solids/sludge in real time. The installation of the Tracerco Profiler™ HTX can eliminate unplanned Desalter shutdowns, reduce chemical usage, increase fluid throughput and provide the capability to handle more challenging crude blends.

Read more to learn how Tracerco helped our customer determine what was actually happening within their Desalter.