Petroleum Refinery

Engineering
Dr. M. Saif Ur Rehman

http://www.enggcyclopedia.com/

Crude Oil
Most transportation vehicles are powered by refined
products such as gasoline, diesel, aviation turbine
kerosene (ATK) and fuel oil.
The recent price rise of crude oil from $50 to $150 per
bbl over the last 2 years has affected the refining
industry in three ways:
Increased search for fuel products from non-fossil sources
such as biodiesel and alcohols from vegetable sources,
Second is the development of better methods to process
tar sand, coal gasification and synthesis of fuels by Fischer
Tropsch (FT) technology and
Third is the initiation of long-term plans to look for
renewable energy sources.

However, crude oil prices are still a cheap source for

transportation fuels and petrochemicals.

Refinery Challenges
Stricter environment regulations have
raised the cost of producing clean fuels.
This motivated the search for producing
clean fuels by non-conventional methods,
Ambient desulphurization by liquid oxidants.
Olefin alkylation
FischerTropsch

New technology and better design of

refinery equipment are also being
developed in order to produce clean and
less expense fuels.

Refining Processes

Physical Separation
Processes
Crude Distillation
Crude oils are first desalted and then
introduced with steam to an atmospheric
distillation column.
The atmospheric residue is then introduced
to a vacuum distillation tower operating at
about 50 mmHg, where heavier products
are obtained

PSP-Solvent Deasphalting
This is the only physical process where carbon is
rejected from heavy petroleum fraction such as
vacuum residue.
Propane in liquid form (at moderate pressure) is
usually used to dissolve the whole oil, leaving
asphaltene to precipitate.
The deasphalted oil (DAO) has low sulphur and metal
contents since these are removed with asphaltene.
This oil is also called Bright Stock and is used as
feedstock for lube oil plant.
The DAO can also be sent to cracking units to
increase light oil production.

PSP-Solvent Extraction
In this process, lube oil stock is
treated by a solvent, such as Nmethyl pyrrolidone (NMP), which can
dissolve the aromatic components in
one phase (extract) and the rest of
the oil in another phase (raffinate).
The solvent is removed from both
phases and the raffinate is dewaxed.
S + A-B--------------S-A +B---------------------A +S

Chemical Catalytic Conversion

Processes
Catalytic Reforming
In this process a special catalyst (platinum
metal supported on silica or silica base
alumina) is used to restructure naphtha
fraction (C6C10) into aromatics and
isoparaffins.
The produced naphtha reformate has a much
higher octane number than the feed.
This reformate is used in gasoline formulation
and as a feedstock for aromatic production
(benzenetoluenexylene, BTX).

CSP-Hydrotreating
This is one of the major processes for the
cleaning of petroleum fractions from
impurities such as sulphur, nitrogen, oxycompounds, chloro-compounds, aromatics,
waxes and metals using hydrogen.
The catalyst is selected to suit the degree
of hydrotreating and type of impurity.
Catalysts, such as cobalt and molybdenum
oxides on alumina matrix, are commonly
used.

http://www.repsol.com/es_en/corporacion/conocer-repsol/canaltecnologia/aplicamos-nuevas-tecnologias/refino-productos/procesosreformado-isomerizacion.aspx

CSP-Catalytic Hydrocracking
For higher molecular weight fractions such as
atmospheric residues (AR) and vacuum gas
oils (VGOs), cracking in the presence of
hydrogen is required to get light products.
In this case a dual function catalyst is used.
It is composed of a zeolite catalyst for the
cracking function and rare earth metals
supported on alumina for the hydrogenation
function.
The main products are kerosene, jet fuel,
diesel and fuel oil.

CSP-Catalytic Cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is the
main player for the production of
gasoline.
The catalyst in this case is a zeolite
base for the cracking function.
The main feed to FCC is VGO and the
product is gasoline, but some gas oil
and refinery gases are also produced.

CSP-Alkylation
Alkylation is the process in which isobutane
reacts with olefins such as butylene (C 4=) to
produce a gasoline range alkylate.
The catalyst in this case is either sulphuric
acid or hydrofluoric acid.
The hydrocarbons and acid react in liquid
phase.
Isobutane and olefins are collected mainly
from FCC and delayed coker.

CSP-Isomerization
Isomerization of light naphtha is the process in which
low octane number hydrocarbons (C4, C5, C6) are
transformed to a branched product with the same
carbon number.
This process produces high octane number products.
One main advantage of this process is to separate
hexane (C6) before it enters the reformer
Thus preventing the formation of benzene which
produces carcinogenic products on combustion with
gasoline.
The main catalyst in this case is a Pt-zeolite base.

Thermal Chemical Conversion

Processes
Delayed Coking
This process is based on the thermal cracking of
vacuum residue by carbon rejection forming
coke and lighter products such as gases,
gasoline and gas oils.
Three types of coke can be produced: sponge,
shot and needle.
The vacuum residue is heated in a furnace and
flashed into large drums where coke is deposited
on the walls of these drums, and the rest of the
products are separated by distillation.

TCSP-Flexicoking
In this thermal process, most of the
coke is gasified into fuel gas using
steam and air.
The burning of coke by air will
provide the heat required for thermal
cracking.
The products are gases, gasoline and
gas oils with very little coke.

TCSP-Visbreaking
This is a mild thermal cracking process used
to break the high viscosity and pour points
of vacuum residue to the level which can be
used in further downstream processes.
In this case, the residue is either broken in
the furnace coil (coil visbreaking) or soaked
in a reactor for a few minutes (soaker
visbreaker).
The products are gases, gasoline, gas oil
and the unconverted residue.

Refining Targets
Refining is carried out by increasing
the hydrogen/carbon (H/C) ratio.
This can be achieved
Either by hydrogenation processes such
as hydrotreating, hydrocracking
or
By carbon rejection processes such as
thermal cracking (coking) and FCC.

Crude Assay and Quality

Crude quality is getting heavier worldwide.
Existing refineries, which are designed to
handle normal crudes are being modified to
handle heavy crude.
New technology for upgrading is used to
obtain clean and light products from lower
cost feeds.
The crude assay will determine the yields of
different cuts and consequently, the
refinery configuration.

Refinery-petrochemical
Integration

The growth of the petrochemical industry has put

pressure on refineries to either change their
configuration or operating conditions to produce more
aromatics and gases.
FCC has been developed to petro-FCC which produces
high yield of gases.
The phasing out of the idea of increasing the octane
number by increasing aromatic content has changed
the role of the catalytic reformer to produce a high
yield of aromatics as BTX feedstock.
The addition of gasification units to process vacuum
residue has opened the way for the addition of a

Development of New
Technology
If a new technology is developed to give
Better yields,
Save energy,
Meet environmental regulations
Product specifications,
then this technology might replace old technology in
existing and new refineries, depending on the
economics.

Other factors, which might influence the refinery

configuration are
Feedstock availability,
Product markets
Companys strategic objectives