If the Mongstad refinery is to succeed in a tough European market, advanced analysis technology is one of the necessary tools.

Refineries must be able to control their process plants optimally, and deliver products exactly as specified with minimum quality costs. Precise and frequent measurements of product characteristics are therefore extremely important, both in the process and during blending operations.

Statoil's Product Technology and Customer service (PTC) has developed and implemented many applications for characterising selected components and products based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR), which is a technology that satisfies relevant requirements.

NIR spectrometers are located in several places in the refinery's process plant and at the laboratory.

The Mongstad refinery is among the best in Europe when it comes to exploiting the opportunities provided by this technology, which is:

• is cost-effective 
• is rapid 
• reduces analyzer maintenance 
• increases blending operations throughput

The near infrared spectrum represents a fingerprint of the chemical composition of a sample.

Since all physical and chemical properties of a sample are a function of composition, one can relate the spectrum to properties of interest using advanced mathematical tools (i.e. multivariate data analysis).

Principles for measuring the near-infrared (NIR) spectrum

 

Petrol
- Research Octane Number (RON)
- Motor Octane Number (MON)
- Benzene
- MTBE (Methyl Tert - Butyl Ether)
- Aromatics
- Olefins
- Distillation properties

Diesel
- Cetane number
- Cetane index
- Aromatics
- Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)
- Distillation properties