Flow of crude oil in pipes and its environmental impact. A review.

The global crude refining capacity has significantly increased over the past 20 years due to demand growth on oil products. The growth of oil demand was associated with strict environment policies in order to reduce the carbon emissions, therefore, it is essential to follow the environmental guidelines, which present new challenges to the industry. Refinery operations must continue to develop via technology research, development, and increased energy efficiency to tackle the challenges and sustain the petroleum refining industry's sustainability. The high runs of refineries, on the other hand, comes at the expense of increasing fouling in different units. The wax elements of crude oil potentially contribute to fouling before the crude oil enters the refinery and fouling in refinery units. The presence of wax components increases fluid viscosity and its accumulation on the flow line section limits, obstructing filters, valves, and even pipelines, rising pumping costs, and decreasing or even blocking crude oil production, storage, and transportation. This review paper aims to highlight the difficult challenges of crude oil flow in pipes and identify the main source of refinery energy inefficiency, which is most likely fouling in preheat trains. Due to a lack of basic knowledge of the causes, deposition processes, deposit composition, and design implications, this has been a complex subject for decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]