Cold flow additive technology can unlock billions for the U.S. refining industry

Welcome to our mini-series focusing on profit and production opportunities for the US refining industry. I’m Kevin Poindexter,  Fuels Additives Executive Manager for Infineum USA, L.P.

In this first of our three-part series, we will aim to give you an overview of an operability specification that we see as the potential answer to revolutionizing how US refineries optimize their profitability in the future.

US refiners are operating in a landscape of growing diesel fuel demand and steady or dropping gasoline demand. At the same time, refining margins are tight and refiners are constantly on the hunt for new ways to increase production without increasing cost.

In the United States, refiners have traditionally focused on the production of gasoline, whereas in Europe most refiners have concentrated on diesel production. Both regions have the production architecture in place to ensure these outputs.

As U.S. refiners start putting more focus on diesel fuel production, it is only logical that they look to Europe for how those refineries maximize diesel throughput and profits.  The outlook for diesel demand continues to remain robust in the U.S. with growth driven by strong export demand.  This growth is forecast to continue into the foreseeable future.

An often overlooked difference between refining on the two continents are pipeline specifications.  Whereas  pipeline specs in the United States have always used cloud point and pour point, Europe and other major markets around the world have adopted an operability specification for the movement and sale of diesel fuel. The most common operability specification in Europe uses the Cold Filter Plugging Point (or CFPP) test, which is included in the European Standard EN590.

The CFPP test procedure was developed almost 50 years ago as an alternate method to the cloud point test for predicting the low temperature operability of a diesel fuel in a vehicle engine.

This, automated, bench-scale test is quick to run and correlates the actual field operability of diesel vehicles to the filtration performance of diesel fuel at low temperature in a lab environment.

Since its introduction, the CFPP test has been successfully used to protect vehicles against failure in the field during cold weather conditions. In addition, the test has helped refineries to optimize their profitability by having an easily measured performance parameter other than cloud point that protects against cold weather vehicle operability failures in the field. For fuels treated with cold flow additive, the result of this test provides robust protection against cold weather engine failure. Cold weather dynamometer testing has confirmed this correlation for CFPP values down to 10-12°C below the cloud point of the untreated diesel fuel.

For decades, Infineum has played a leading role in shaping the cold flow and lubricity additives businesses through active participation in industry test methods and novel technology development.

Our next video in this series will look in more detail at the potential value that CFPP could bring to the US refining industry both in terms of capturing a significant amount of value and potentially releasing hundreds of thousands of barrels per day of additional diesel fuel into the pipeline.