Building up resistance to oil deposits

A consortium of UK universities is to research ways to minimise the build-up of deposits from crude oil and so increase the efficiency of the UK's oil refineries.

Imperial

and the universities of

and

are collaborating on a three-year project, starting in the autumn, which aims to increase the industry's understanding of asphaltenes — compounds in crude oil which foul equipment and reduce the efficiency of the heat exchange system.

The process by which these compounds solidify and form hard deposits inside the refinery is not very well understood, but according to project leader, Prof Geoff Hewitt from

, it is a problem which is costing the industry a fortune.

'It costs more than £1bn a year in lost production time, cleaning and most importantly energy wastage,' said Hewitt. 'The asphaltene deposit acts like a layer of insulation on the heat exchange and limits the energy that can be produced.'