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البحـث الأول
مجلة النفط والتعاون العربي
161
العدد
- 2017
أربعون
المجلد الثالث و ال
2016
أوابك العلمية لعام
�
ص لبحوث العلمية الفائزة بجائزة
�
عدد خا
25
15
close to 16 barrels a day) is that it demonstrated the “viability of hydro
-treating
to produce lubricants meeting API and military specifications.”
41
Further increases of oil price in the early 1980s encouraged new development of
re-refining processes and their implementation. In 1983 the Kenetic Technology
International (KTI) process was developed and the first commercial re-refinery
was built in Newark, California and continues to operate to this day
41
.
Mohawk Canada had originally licensed Phillips pr
ocess (PROP) but this didn’t
work to their satisfaction. They redesigned the plant to include vacuum
distillation and hydro-treating, and began producing top quality base oil around
1983 after their collaboration with Chemical Engineering Partners (CEP) of
California.
The Breslube Enterprises of Canada was re-refining used oil since 1977 but in
1984 they added a vacuum distillation unit and installed a hydro-treater in 1985
to become the largest re-refiner in North America
41
.
The newly acquired euphoria for re-refining was driven by further surges of oil
prices in the early 1980s which led to higher base oil prices and better margins
for re-refiners. Rising environmental concerns and the tightening of
environmental laws and regulations played their part to improve the management
of waste in general and used oil in particular. Harm from mismanagement of used
oil causes air and water pollution while modern re-refining processes avoided all
that and produced base oils at least equivalent to virgin stock.
The re-
refining industry “was too small for the oil majors to deem worthy of
significant attention and too complex for most used oil collectors to master
41
”.
Therefore the big oil companies generally stayed out though all of them have the
capital and some have developed processes of their own. Perhaps they were afraid
of the stigma associated with recycled products that the consumers have and the
oil companies wanted to dissociate their own products from re-refined oil. The
re-refiners on the other hand had to counter the stigma by spending money on
testing and independent certification of their products. For example, in 1980,
Shell Canada invested roughly $40 million in a used oil re-refinery in Toronto,
Ontario, which was later sold, and eventually mothballed and scrapped.
The collapse of oil prices in 1986 slowed down development of re-refining
schemes and “between 1991 and 2008, there were no new re
-refineries in North
America
41
.”