By Adam Wilmoth
The Oklahoman
 

The country's fuel industry soon could receive a boost if technology developed at the University of Oklahoma proves as successful as its designers expect.

The refining process upgrade is expected to increase refinery production by 3 percent to 30 percent, depending on the plant design and type of crude oil used.

“It won't have a humongous impact, but it will make some difference in terms of the economics of the refineries,” said Miguel Bagajewicz, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma's School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering.

Bagajewicz invented the technology shortly after he joined OU in 1995.

“The research was long overdue,” he said. “The last serious book that had been published on new refinery technology was in the 1970s.”

The process involves attaching additional hardware to a refinery's core processor. The upgrade allows the plant to extract more usable product from a barrel of oil. The facility is then left with less residue.

It is still unclear exactly what it would cost to install the upgrade, but Bagajewicz said the new process would pay for itself within months. A modest 5 percent improvement at a 100,000 barrel-per-day refinery could generate as much as $25,000 a day.

The project has become part of OU's Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth. Bagajewicz works with four OU students to complete testing on the technology and to help market the improvement to the refinery industry.

Team member Lindsey McClure said the project has the potential to significantly improve the economics at refineries throughout the country. “If this technology performs well on an actual refinery like it has in experiments and simulations, we're looking at a couple million dollars in savings per year at each refinery,” she said. “I see a lot of potential.”

McClure has a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and is working on a master's degree in business administration.

“I've been able to understand the technical side with my engineering background, but I've worked most closely on the marketing side.”

The experience with the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth has led McClure to reconsider her futureplans. “I always wanted to leave the state when I graduate,” she said. “Now I'm excited about the potential for the state. I think it's going to be a really exciting time, and I would certainly want to come back and be a part of that.”

OU researchers say the project has performed well in the lab.

Refiners, however, have been reluctant to punch holes in their multibillion-dollar refineries without real-world proof, Bagajewicz said.

Oklahoma City businessman Tony Say has agreed to be the first commercial user of the new technology. Say is the group's mentor-in-residence and has worked over the past three months to help the students understand what is necessary to market the technology to the refinery industry.

Say and his partners recently bought the Thomas Refinery in western Oklahoma. The 14,000-barrel-per-day facility is expected to reopen next month.

“They approached us and said they thought they could improve our yields 5 to 8 percent,” Say said. “That obviously immediately piqued my interest.”

A conservative 4 percent improvement would increase the small refinery's output by 440 barrels a day, Say said.

Commercial success at the Thomas Refinery could lead to additional customers nationwide, Bagajewicz said.

“The refining industry is very conservative,” he said. “People are a little bit reluctant to push new ideas until you really convince them that things are working and there shouldn't be any doubt.”
 

Copyright 2006, The Oklahoma Publishing Company