A major producer in the mid-continent area operates a 100,000 BPD refinery where jet fuel is produced at a rate of approximately 10,500 BPD. The jet fuel is sent through a salt tower and clay tower prior to distribution via truck or pipeline.

Whenever jet fuel is pumped to the tank, a 3-gallon sample is pulled and is run through a membrane to check for clarity. On the average, once every 4-6 weeks a sample would fail the clarity test. When a failure occurs, additional problems are created:

1. The pipeline shipping the product would not have product to ship at the scheduled time. Shipment schedules would have to be revised. Contract commitments required expensive on the spot market purchases.

2. Or, if the fuel were scheduled to be transported by truck, this truck would have to be sent to another site to pick up its scheduled shipment of jet fuel.

The operator installed Pall’s high area pleated glass fiber filters downstream of the clay tower.
These Pall filters remove all solid particulates 2 microns and larger from the jet fuel stream. The system configuration consisted of (15) filters totaling 810 square feet of filter area.

Pall’s pleated glass fiber filters have provided on-spec jet fuel since their installation in December of 1997. The first set of filters was not changed out for approximately 6 months. 1,575,000 barrels were filtered through one changeout of filters. This was based on a flowrate of 10,500 BPD, The cost to filter the fuel is .1 cents /barrel. Additional savings from the ability to ship the on-spec jet fuel, rather than purchase on the spot market, were estimated at 2 cents per gallon. This resulted in savings of over $65,000 per year (based on 75,000 BBLS total annual on the spot market purchases).