Hydrocarbon Management
The term Hydrocarbon management or mass reconciliation or oil loss all mean to the balancing of the input and output of a refinery. The typical best run refineries average imbalance is between 0.35-0.55% of refinery crude throughput and this translates into yearly loss of 35-60M$ for a 300KBD refinery with crude price of $100/bl. This loss does not even account for loss due to demurrage, data inconsistencies in custody transfer data, etc. This is huge incentive for not so efficient refineries, at least it should be, to manage its assets efficiently, streamline the accounting procedures, calibrate its meters, etc.
Hydrocarbon Management in the Refining Industry