Page 239 - Challenges in Corrosion Costs Causes Consequences and Control(2015)

CORROSION INHIBITORS 217

The use of corrosion inhibitors has increased to a great extent since the 1980s. It may
be noted that the total consumption of corrosion inhibitors in the United States was
nearly $1.1 billion.
Increased amounts in inhibitor usage in 1981, 1986, and 1998 for three of the
largest industrial sectors, namely, the oil production, chemical, and refining industries
have been noted (13). It is useful to note the inhibitor usage for petroleum produc-
tion in 1986 occurred during the time that the US oil industry suffered a downfall
because of the increase in oil prices to above $30 per barrel. A significant drop in
prices occurred during the second half of the 1980s. With the drop in prices to val-
ues below $10 per barrel in 1998, domestic production decreased, consequently. This
coincided with the drop in inhibitor usage for drilling and production.

4.4.1 Petroleum Production, Transportation, and Refining

The consumption of inhibitors in the petroleum industry is directly connected to the
size of the petroleum-based production market. This in turn is tied to the price of
crude oil. The overall consumption of gasoline in the United States has increased
only slightly since 1980. Although there are more cars on the road, the average con-
sumption of gasoline has decreased. Increasing quantities of crude oil on a relative
basis are being imported from the Middle East.
The increased input of foreign oil results in the reduction of inhibitor used by the
oil companies in the production sector but not in the refining sector. Quite often the
petroleum production and refining industries run in opposite economic cycles. When
the crude oil price is high, domestic production is profitable; however, the margin of
product on refining is lowered. Conversely, when oil prices are low, refinery feedstock
is cheap, and the production of refined products and specialty chemicals results in a
higher profit as consumption of the products is only slightly tied to oil prices.
Upstream oil production uses inhibitors for oil drilling operations as well as perma-
nent production tubulars and pipelines, where two-phase and three-phase production
streams are treated with filming inhibitors. The amount used ($153 million) in pro-
duction is dependent on the amount of water produced with the oil. The economics
of such a system is calculated as cost per barrel of oil or water produced. This has
been estimated in the lower 48 states to range from $0.02 per barrel of oil produced to
$0.23 per barrel of oil produced, depending on factors such as temperature, corrosive
gases present, and operating procedures.
Refinery operations utilize the highest amount of inhibitors ($246 million) because
higher temperature processes are encountered in refining operations. Not only do
process and boiler water streams require inhibition, but also process environments
produce HCl, which must be neutralized with pH modifying inhibitors, imported oils
from Middle East sources tend to be sour (high sulfur content) and are more corro-
sive; therefore, in terms of per barrel of oil refined, costs of inhibition for production
crudes are expected to increase. An annual rate of increase in refining sector has been
predicted to be approximately 2.5%.
The cost of inhibitors for petroleum storage and transportation is approximately
$31 million, which is related to the price of oil as new pipelines are built when oil