In oil and gas processing, compliance and process optimisation are essential considerations across the value chain. Achieving these standards at every level of the process largely depends on precise chemical injection and product blending, which are both areas in which static mixers have reshaped best practices for engineers and operators alike. Their impact is multi-faceted, offering not only technical and economic benefits but also enhancing plant safety and sustainability.
Read on to discover how static mixers are transforming the oil and gas industry process.
Elevating Crude Oil Desalting
Efficient desalting is foundational in crude oil processing. The challenge lies in breaking emulsions and extracting salts to prevent excessive corrosion and scaling within downstream equipment. Here’s where static mixer technology stands apart. Unlike mechanical agitators that can introduce inconsistencies, static mixers inject and disperse wash water and demulsifiers in a controlled, repeatable manner. The result? Salt content in crude is reduced more consistently, boosting the integrity and uptime of refinery assets.
One North Sea application involved the installation of corrosion-resistant, high-pressure static mixers to desour crude oil streams, demonstrating not only enhanced mixing, but also the adaptability of these units to tough environments. This move has led to improved process control with minimal space requirements, a critical factor on offshore platforms.
Pipeline Blending: Uniformity On Demand
Modern refineries often manage complex feedstock logistics, blending various hydrocarbon grades to meet strict specification criteria. Static mixers integrated directly into pipeline infrastructure have proven their value here, ensuring every cubic metre of blended oil or refined product is compositionally uniform. This translates to reliable sampling, regulatory compliance, and prevention of off-specification batches.
The lack of moving parts also reduces the footprint and maintenance demands of static mixers, and the element design can be tailored to accommodate high-flow or high-viscosity scenarios. In one of our UK projects, static mixers were specified in a recycling line for a large tank blending operation, cutting mixing times from days to mere hours and eliminating reliance on compressor air systems.
Process Control: Precision And Predictability
Consistent chemical injection is essential for the stability of the oil and gas process, whether dosing corrosion inhibitors, drag reducers, or hydrate suppressors. Static mixers, engineered with advanced CFD and with advanced CFD and wet tested, deliver tight control over the dispersion profile. Operators achieve better stability in line temperature and pressure and can respond quickly to fluctuations in composition or throughput.
Multiple injection points can be engineered into a single unit, an approach adopted in some pipeline installations to create stepwise blending or staged reaction profiles. This capability is particularly effective for long pipelines, where maintaining product homogeneity is critical over distances.
Maintenance: Less Is More
A significant operational advantage of static mixers is their inherently low-maintenance nature. The absence of shafts, bearings, or seals means far less wear, even in aggressive process conditions. For facilities in harsh or remote environments, this reliability reduces not just the frequency of intervention but also the overall lifecycle cost of mixing operations.
Our Statiflo large-diameter static mixers have been supplied to oil, gas, and petrochemical plants worldwide without the need for upstream or downstream piping modifications, further supporting ease of integration and ongoing serviceability.
Gas Purification: Enhanced Contaminant Removal
Purity standards for natural gas are increasing as markets and regulations tighten. Homogeneous mixing of absorbents or reactants with gas streams—whether for amine scrubbing of CO₂ or H₂S removal—is essential. Static mixers enable effective treatment at the first pass. For example, in applications involving the blending of natural gas with regasified LNG, parallel pipelines equipped with large-diameter static mixers achieved controlled, representative mixing with minimal residence time. This capability shortens response times for online analytics and enables rapid adaptation to changing feed gas compositions.
Find Out More
To discover how our range of industrial static mixers can improve your oil and gas process, please get in touch with the experienced team at Statiflo today by clicking here.
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