MTS is currently involved in several projects involving mercury removal from crude oil and heavy condensates. Commercially available sorbent systems that remove mercury from light liquids are not applicable to heavier feeds, including crude feeds to refineries and heavy raw liquids to gas processing facilities. The technical challenge is to segregate mercury in such a fashion that it is unavailable to adversely affect chemical processes. The focus of current projects is to understand the distribution of mercury species in separations, desalting and distillations. Chemical treatments are under development that can be applied to particular steams to accomplish species conversion and removal, while not degrading hydrocarbon quality.
