An oil firm, Secured Oil and Gas Limited, has introduced a new technology for cold de-sulphurization of petroleum products.
The Chief Operations Officers (COO) of the company, Adamu Abu, told reporters in Ibadan that the development is in compliance with requirements by the Department for Petroleum Resources (DPR).
He said the technology is useful for upgrading the quality of gasoline, converting naphtha to gasoline and cracking crude and heavy fuel oil in an easy, low-cost and effective way without heating or hazardous pollution.
Speaking further on the development, Adamu said the company was introducing “nano-additive technology used for cold de-sulphurization of petroleum products such as AGO and fuel oil in compliance with DPR requirement.”
He said the technology which cannot be reverse-engineered or copied can be “used to boost research octane number of gasoline (PMS) by between 12 to 15 points thereby upgrading low quality gasoline to high grade gasoline.
According to Abu, “the additive can also completely crack heavy crude or fuel oil without the need for heat, pressure, vacuum, expensive catalyst and machinery. The process can eliminate Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) in a petroleum refinery.”
He noted that “the use of nano-additive is to rethink the refining process – something that has not changed for more than 50-60 years.”
The COO explained that the additive also can be useful for converting heavy residual fuel oil to marine gas oil, heavy crude oil into lighter crude oil, without waste or toxic, radioactive, environmentally hazardous by-products.
“The unique characteristic is that the density of the nano-additive is the same as gasoline/naphtha (0.780-0.788) range. It is alcohol-based in which the nano particles are suspended. As such, it blends with gasoline; it is a simple stir and mix operation at a dosing of 4 percent,” Abu noted.
He said the additive can be deployed at any site, including source of crude production.