The eLearning Center for B.F. Environmental Consultants, Inc.

Overview

This course has been developed to provide a brief overview of the function and interrelationship of the petroleum refinery fuels processes most commonly found in modern petroleum refineries. These processes refine petroleum crude oils into the literally hundreds of specification petroleum products, many of which we use on a daily basis. Refinery fuels processes fall into several broad categories: Fractionation (distillation), Treating and Upgrading. This course is applicable to all engineering disciplines. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will have achieved a basic understanding of what occurs inside a modern petroleum refinery. Furthermore, the student will learn how the most common refinery fuels processes accomplish the refining of crude oils into the fuels specification products that the markets demand.

The student must take a multiple-choice quiz consisting of fifteen (15) questions at the end of the course to obtain PDH credits.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Attained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

  · Quantities and sizes of U.S. refineries and the relevance of economies of scale and location on refinery operations
  · Crude oil assays, naming and grouping conventions, viscosities and characterization by boiling point.
  · Fractionation processes, including crude oil distillation and light ends fractionation
  · Crude oil treating processes, including hydrotreating and amine contacting
  · Crude oil upgrading processes, including catalytic reforming, fluidized catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, alkylation, and coking
  · Refinery ancillary processes, including hydrogen production and sulfur conversion
  · Product blending to meet product specifications

State Board Acceptance

This course can be used by professional engineers to fulfill PDH requirements mandated by state and provincial licensing boards. Decatur Professional Development is an approved provider of continuing education in all states that pre-approve course providers. In all other states that mandate continuing education for engineers, it is the individual engineer's responsibility to determine the suitability of activities for PDH credit. The state boards typically accept online* courses that cover technical, managerial** or ethical content and which are relevant to the practice of engineering. The course must have a clear purpose or objective with a content that will maintain, improve or expand the skills and knowledge of the licensee's field of practice. For questions about your mandatory PDH requirements, visit the website of your state licensing board.

*Online courses are accepted by all state licensing boards that mandate continuing education. Other than New York (which limits online courses to 18 PDH) and Iowa (which limits online courses to 6 PDH), there are no limits placed by other states on the number of hours that can be earned through online continuing education. Consult with your state licensing board if you have any questions about the acceptability of online courses.

**The New York State Board of Engineers does not accept general office management courses, but will accept project management courses that are offered by an approved provider and that are technical in nature and contribute to the engineer's professional practice.

Please Note: Continuing Education credits for this course are awarded as PDH (Professional Development Hour Credits).