Oil and Gas Quality Testing

Each day tons of oil petrochemicals, gas, and biofuels are traded all over the world. Following the growing globalization, oil, well known as an important energy and resource, has become an indispensable part of every modern society. Polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene and other byproducts from petroleum industry have been widely used in our daily lives. Petroleum industry provides raw materials for plastic bags, paraffin wax, diesel oil, asphalt and so on. International standards and regulations govern and define how trading operations should progress in order to reduce the risk for everyone. Quality control of fuel oil is an essential risk management activity for producers, traders and distributors since the quality of oil products governs its function. Alfa Chemistry offers a wide range of oil and gas quality testing services such as fuel combustion quality, physical characterization, contamination identification, as well as full product component analysis.

From petroleum cargo inspection to used oil analysis, Alfa Chemistry is your fully accredited one-stop-shop for oil and gas testing. We can provide a broad range of methods and instruments to solve the problem that you may come across during oil & gas exploration, transportation, and production.

Oil quality analysis

Petroleum products can be divided into petroleum fuels, petroleum solvents, chemical raw materials, lubricants, paraffin wax, petroleum asphalt and petroleum coke. Closed flash point, diesel fuel solidification point, the octane value of the gasoline, kinematic viscosity, acidity value, boiling range are always mentioned on the inspection checklist to monitor the petroleum products quality.

1. Open/closed flash point testing

Fig.1. Closed flash point tester

The danger level of oil is determined by the flash point. The flash point of inflammable needs to be below 45°C. Compounds with flash points above 45°C fall into combustible category. Flash point refers to the lowest temperature at which the oil product can form a flammable mixture with air. Shown in Fig.1 is a closed flash point tester

2. Solidification point testing

The degree of solidification point is directly related to the content of wax. The more wax there is in the oil, the higher the solidification point. Direct cooling method, melting method and solidification point method can be employed to determine the solidification point of oil.

3. Kinematic viscosity testing

Fig.2. kinematic viscosity tester

The kinematic viscosity (also called "momentum diffusivity") is the ratio of the dynamic viscosity μ to the density of the fluid ρ. Fig.2 shows a fully automated instrument with high precision, good repeatability & reproducibility, ease of operation that can be used to measure the kinetic viscosity of transparent or opaque fluids.

Gas quality analysis

There are several technical parameters that can reflect the quality of gas such as the gas components, calorific value, water dew point, hydrocarbon dew point, hydrogen sulfide and total sulfur content. Among them, high calorific value (MJ/m³), total sulfur content (mg/m³), hydrogen sulfide content (mg/m³), carbon dioxide content (%) and water dew point (°C) are the most important aspects in oil & gas analysis.

1. Gas component Analysis

The gas component can be analyzed using Gas Chromaotgraphy. We offer testing and analytical services for a number of different gases including helium, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, ethane, methane, propane, isobutane, n-butane, isopentane, n-pentane, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and others.

2. Total sulfur and hydrogen sulfide testing

There are a broad range of methods to test the content of total sulfur and hydrogen sulfide. Iodimetric method, methylene blue method, lead acetate reaction rate dual path method, potentiometric method and laser absorption spectrometry method can be used for hydrogen sulfide analysis. Oxidation microcoulomb method, ratiometric colorimetric method, combustion method and UV fluorescence spectrophotometry method can be used for total sulfur analysis.

3. Water dew point testing

Natural gas generally contains certain amount of water when it is produced from the underground. The water may cause the pipeline to ice plug at low temperature and corrode the pipelines, which is a hidden danger in gas transportation and production. The traditional method to measure the water dew point is cooling surface condensation hygrometers which can be affected by manual operation error and low degree of automation. Now we use electronic analysis, such as capacitance sensor (Fig.4), electrolysis sensor and piezoelectricity sensor for accurate results.

Fig.3. The capacitive on-line water dew point meter

Our services in oil and gas quality testing include:

• Residual Range Organics

• Extractable Petroleum Hydrocarbons

• Volatile Petroleum Hydrocarbons

• Semivolatile Petroleum Products

• Motor Oil

Alfa Chemistry is professional in oil and gas quality testing. We can provide accurate and reliable tests results within the time constraint. Please feel free to contact us if you have any concern or would like us to perform any oil & gas testing.

Reference

• Y. Xie, M Huang. A brief analysis of natural gas quality and measurement technology in China [J]. Production Quality. (2018) 2:17–18.