Standards Development

Scope

Standardization in the field of petroleum and related products, including, but not limited to, principle, reagents, equipment and its operation, test procedure and expression of results.

This document specifies a test method for measuring the salt content in crude oil and heavy distillates by ion chromatography.

This document applies to the determination of the salt content ranging from 0.5 mg/L to 600 mg/L (calculated as sodium chloride) in crude oil and its heavy products.

Purpose

Salt in crude oil has a negative impact on its processing, as it is one of the key components leading to corrosion in processing units during crude processing. Consequently, the specification for salt in crude oil has been set to be lower than 3.0 mg NaCl/L in refineries that process heavy crudes. However, in recent practice, it has been reported that even crude with a salt content lower than the 3.0 mg NaCl/L specification can still cause some corrosion to the distillation unit. Ion chromatography is highly sensitive and able to detect levels as low as micrograms per liter (ug/L). This proposal aims to establish a standard for determining the salt content in crude oil and heavy distillates using ion chromatography. This standardization will provide a unified test method and conditions to obtain comparative test data.