Upgrading of crude oil desalting unit of Baiji oil refinery

The desalting and dehydration system in Baiji oil refinery uses a combination of methods including electrical, thermal, chemical, and physical methods. The salt content is within the range of 14-20 mg/L. The desalting efficiency rarely exceeds 75%, thus salt and water content exceed the Iraqi permissible limit. The purpose of the present work is to improve the performance of the Baiji oil refinery desalting unit without any major alteration of the field unit configuration. A laboratory scale unit is designed and constructed to investigate the desalting unit performance under various operating conditions. The results showed that under optimum operating parameters, the obtained desalting and dehydration efficiencies are 98.1% and 97.6%, respectively. The corresponding salt concentration and water content are 0.268 mg/L and 0.1 vol.%, respectively, which were within the acceptable Iraqi levels.