Essar Oil’s Vadinar Refinery has one of the most sophisticated corrosion monitoring systems, which helps the company increase profitability, optimise costs and enhance overall safety.
But what exactly is Online Corrosion Monitoring?
Complex refineries, like Vadinar, process a large proportion of opportunity crudes to maximise refinery margins. Opportunity crudes are typically crudes that are cheaper to procure because of their high metal or sulphur content, as well as high TAN (Total Acidic Number, or simply high acidic content) and density. The increased acid content in these crudes can corrode refinery equipment. An effective corrosion monitoring system is therefore a prerequisite to ensure the sustainability of the refinery infrastructure. During the September-October shutdown last year, Essar Oil augmented the technology and infrastructure for online corrosion monitoring. Essar Oil currently employs three different corrosion monitoring technologies: Field Signature Method (FSM) system - Permasense system
- CEION/ER probe system
Essar Oil refinery is the only one in South Asia to have such a sophisticated monitoring system. The system takes continuous data on metal loss occurring in the equipment because of the corrosive nature of the crude. The few refineries that have comparable systems are in Eastern China and some parts of Europe.
Mr DS Kunal, Mr Kunal Pandey and Mr Surendra C, three corrosion engineers from Essar Oil’s Inspection team, have authored a paper on “New technology and infrastructure for online real-time corrosion monitoring and control”. The paper has been published in the souvenir of the Petrosafe 2016 international conference, which is attended by stalwarts from the Indian petroleum ministry, oil sector heads and international delegates.
| 
