Heating Crude

摘要

When crude is extracted from the earth, it needs to be heated to make it suitable for handling. In addition to petroleum, crude contains sand, water and other impurities that need to be removed. Heavy crude is too thick or viscous to be pumped easily. Special heaters are needed to heat the material and reduce its viscosity. Special-purpose heaters are designed to handle the job of heating heavy crude. For instance, for a major oil company, one heater maker built a convection heater designed for heating substances with high sensitivity to overheating. Designed to heat fluids by means of convection, the convection heater has a natural gas burner that has an output of 36 million BTU/hr.