re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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The refinery in Salavat

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I thought that this one had been hit in April. Not a big one but still ouch.

When I see reports of projects in these refineries I notice that the new big deal has been to install desalting units over the last 20 years. We've been using these since at least the 1950's in the USA and Canada even in simple hydroskimming refineries. All oil and gas comes out of the ground with at least some old ancient salt water. We dehydrated the natural gas at the field here (Russia lets hydrates form and freeze up its pipelines). We have long removed the saltwater with electrostatic desalters prior to the first step, atmospheric crude distillation (crude unit) here as well. I've seen desalters bought as used for refineries built in the late 1950's which had been used in older refineries which upgraded to larger desalters.

Russia is a seriously inefficient economy all the way around. It's technology is way behind that of the West in so many ways. It's got that boyars ruling the serfs mindset, just get more serfs. They may as well provide teaspoons to dig ditches instead of even shovels