Modern crude distillation, modularized
Global interest in modular refinery construction is surging. Small modular refineries are attractive to investors for several important reasons: SPEED: Project time from contract execution to start-up can be as short as 18-24 months. LOGISTICAL ADVANTAGES:Modular refineries can be built in remote locations to realize efficiencies in supply and transportation of raw crude and refined products. LOW INITIAL COST: Small relative size makes initial capital cost more manageable. Modules can be constructed in the shop with nearly 100% productive time, and turnkey fabrication and construction services lower the likelihood of project delays or cost overruns.
For a project to realize the benefi ts listed above, it has to start up and run reliably. Saving initial capital by cutting corners is a doomed strategy. Cost savings should result from clever fl ow schemes that minimize equipment and module count without sacrificing product yields or unit reliability.
With the right expertise, it is possible to design industrially proven, reliable equipment to be easily modularized. Process Consulting Services has engineered over 100 crude/vacuum unit revamps and over 4 MMBPD of grassroots crude unit capacity. We have drawn on all of this experience to develop a unique flow scheme for modular crude/vacuum units. Our modular crude distillation process is fully modern, incorporating time-tested technologies to eliminate common reliability issues. Some of these features, developed in much larger units, have been re-thought to be affordable on a modular scale.
No matter how low the initial cost of a crude unit is, the investment will not pay off if the unit is plagued by avoidable problems. Poor desalting (corrosion), preflash tower foaming (off -spec naphtha), tray plugging (poor fractionation and product quality), etc. can all be mitigated by thoughtful front-end design. Through creative flowsheet and equipment design, PCS is able to significantly reduce the number of modules required to build a modern crude distillation unit that maximizes valuable product yield, energy efficiency, and reliability.
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Oil sands crude — profits and problems?
Canadian bitumen production currently runs about 1 MMbpd, with some being sold as Synbit and Dilbit. Over the next 10-12 years output is expected to increase to 3.5 MMbpd and more refiners will begin investing to process it and come to depend on the Synbit and Dilbit for a significant part of their supply. ...
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Heavy crudes are here to stay. As longs as oil prices remain high, Canadian, Venezuelan, Deep Water Gulf of Mexico, Mexican and other low API gravity crude oils will play an ever more important role in supplying world refineries. And prices promise to remain high because gainsayers notwithstanding, Hubbert ...
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Designing deepcut vacuum units that really work
Every barrel of vacuum gas oil (VGO) you can save from being reduced to coke in the delayed coker unit is a barrel more that can go to the FCCU. That’s a good reason to raise HVGO cutpoint. But how to do it? Some people think the job can be done just by running computer models in the engineering ...
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A time for grass roots thinking ?
Within the past year or two spiking crude prices and surging refinery margins have led to overheated talk about increasing refinery capacity worldwide. Plans for construction of as many 60 grass roots refineries have been discussed. But stretched out lead times for major equipment and inflated prices, ...
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A single integrated vacuum system
Failure to design the vacuum unit as an integrated system will invariably result in unsatisfactory yield and poor product quality (high vanadium, nickel, microcarbon, or asphaltenes), and ultimately, an unscheduled shutdown. To avoid these revamp problems the charge pump, fired heater, transfer line, ...
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Back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when fuel gas prices were high, energy utilization assumed major importance. A new method of calculating heat exchanger networks was developed. It was called Pinch Technology. Today pinch has been rediscovered by engineers who have access to fast computer ...
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A group of interesting articles* deals with opportunity crudes, a mixed breed that includes very heavy, sour and high total acid number types as well as those with unexceptional naphthenic acid content but which do have significant concentrations of aliphatic acids or possess the ability to generate ...
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Processing heavy Canadian crude
Reducing crude oil cost is the major incentive driving crude and vacuum unit projects to handle heavy Canadian crudes. But such crudes–Albian Heavy, Christina Lake, MacKay River and others derived from oil sands–today present refiners with a unique set of problems not just because of extra-low ...
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Why do many crude/vacuum units perform poorly?
In many cases it’s because the original design was based more on virtual than actual reality. There is no question: computer simulations have a key role to play but it’s equally true that process design needs to be based on what works in the field and not on the ideals of the process simulator. ...
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Why produce diesel from the vacuum unit?
Look ahead five years. The economy is likely to keep tightening and the rush to control pollution will inevitably be accompanied by demands for greater energy conservation. Consequence? A growing market for diesel which yields more energy per unit volume. Yet many continue to believe that producing diesel ...
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