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البحـث الأول
مجلة النفط والتعاون العربي
161 العدد - 2017 أربعونالمجلد الثالث و ال
2016 أوابك العلمية لعام� ص لبحوث العلمية الفائزة بجائزة� عدد خا
63
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• Consideration of the plant locati on and its relation to the efficient
collection, storage and transport of used oil and whether the plant needs
services or input from an existing facility. This is particularly important
with respect to hydrogen.
• The national or local legislation in place.
• The Socio-economic benefits with respect to employment and others.
• Consideration and utilization of experience gained in other countries or
plants.
It is important to understand that the traditional processing of used oils such as
acid clay process or even distillation clay process are increasingly not desirable
in many countries because of the hazardous waste they produce and the cost
associated with its treatment. The distillation clay process may only be used for
small capacity plants in any case.
Therefore we are really left with either solvent extraction or hydrogenation
processes. Take the European Union as an example1, 70 . In 2012, the solvent
extraction processes total capacity was 581 thousand tons a year in eight plants
and catalytic hydro-treating total capacity was 306 thousand tons a year in three
plants. But the trend may be shifting in favour of the hydro-treating route due to
the need to produce higher quality base oils such as API Group II & III.
In North and South America1, four plants are using hydro-treating processes to a
total capacity of about 655 thousand tons a year and two plants are using solvent
extraction processes to a total capacity of 78 thousand tons a year.
In Asia Pacific and Australia, two plants are reported in 2012 using solvent
extraction processes at a total capacity of 94 thousand tons a year. In Indonesia,
40 thousand tons a year plant uses hydro-finishing.
This is not to say that these are the only plants processing used oil. There are
about 200 oil recyclers in North America but only three are primarily re-refiners,
which recover lube oil for reuse. The others recycle waste oil by producing fuel
for energy recovery1 . The same goes for Europe where there are many plants
processing used oil for fuel only1. Plants using old and no longer reliable
processes are not reported in the statistics. Overall, there are 400 plants
processing used oil for fuel or base oil production around the world1.