Refinery Operations

The previous section described the manner in which the crude oil is received, passed through the various units to produce finished products or finished components that are blended to make finished products. The purpose of this section is to describe in a little more detail how each of these processing is accomplished and its overall work by practical application of the many principles covered earlier. Refinery has 13 process units and each has a specific function to purify or to rearrange the molecular structure or crack the molecules to make more desirable products. In all the units great emphasis is placed on the conservation of heat by the use of heat exchangers. The steam used in the process units is served by three headers under different pressures. The high pressure (H.P.) steam header will have a pressure of 31'2 kg. per sq. cm., the medium pressure (M. P.) steam will be under pressure of 10-5 kg. per sq. cm. and the low pressure (L. P.) steam will be under a pressure of 3'5 kg. per sq. cm. The air required for pneumatic instruments and control valves and the cooling water are supplied from a central source for all the plants. Crude distillation unit - Plant No. I. The crude unit is the starting point for all refinery operations. The separation of crude oil into raw products is accomplished in the crude unit by fractional distillation in fractionating columns, based on their distillation range. The process does not involve any chemical changes. The unit consists of an electrostatic desaker, an atmospheric distillation tower and a two stage vacuum distillation sections. The unit is designed to process Darius crude having a specific gravity of 0'855 at a rate of 348-6 m3 /hr. A schematic representation of the crude oil and product flow is attached. The two crude feed pumps, located near the crude storage tanks, supplies the feed to the unit. The feed to the unit is passed through a desalter where the chlorides of calcium, magnesium and sodium are removed. These salts form corrosive acids during processing and therefore are detrimental to process equipments. By injecting water to the crude oil stream these salts are dissolved in the water and the solution is separated from the crude by means of an electrostatic separator in a large vessel. The electrically charged grids coalesces the water and aids separation from the crude. After desalting the crude is heated through a series of heat exchangers and then by a furnace to a temperature of 393C and admitted to the flash zone of the atmospheric distillation tower.

Four fractions are separated in the atmospheric tower. The overhead vapours are condensed in a two stage system. The condensed liquid from the first stage is used as reflux to the tower. The second stage liquid together with the compressed and condensed vapours from the second stage is collected in the stablilizer feed accumulator. The liquid in the stabilizer feed accumulator is the feed to the Vapour Recovery unit. The uncondensed vapours from the stabilizer feed accumulator is routed to fuel gas system after removal of H 2 S in the sulphur plant. The other three products separated are heavy naphtha, kerosene and diesel. The heavy naphtha is drawn from tray 28 and is steam stripped to improve flash. The majority of this product is line blended with diesel from HSD desulphurisation unit (Plant No. 5) and raw diesel to make finished High Speed Diesel oil. A small amount of the heavy naphtha is sent to Merox treater. This treater oxidises mercaptans to disulphi-des thereby eliminating the unpleasant odour. The treated stream is used for blending JP-4.

Kerosene drawn from tray No. 20 is steam stripped and is charged hot to kerosene hydro-desulphuriser plant (Plant No. 4). When this unit is shut down, kerosene is cooled and sent to intermediate storage tank through the kerosene product cooler at Plant No. 4. Diesel oil is drawn from plate 10. Approximately 50% of the diesel oil is routed to H. S. D. Hydrodesulphuriser (Plant 5) after heat exchange with crude and the balance is cooled and blended with

the desulphurised diesel oil to produce HSD product. When Plant No. 5 is shut down, the total stream is cooled in the product cooler at Plant 5 and sent to storage. The stripped overhead liquid streams from kerosene hydrode-sulphuriser, HSD desulphuriser and lube oil hydrofinisher are sent to the atmospheric distillation tower after separating the water in a dewatering drum. The hot reduced crude from the bottom of atmospheric distillation tower is further fractionated in the two stage vacuum distillation section. The vacuum maintained in these fractionators makes it possible to fractionate the reduced crude at much lower temperatures. But for this vacuum, the higher temperatures required to fractionate reduced crude will result in cracking of the products. The reduced crude from atmospheric tower bottoms is further heated in presence of steam in the first stage vacuum heater and introduced into the first stage vacuum tower. Three side-stream products spindle oil, light neutral and intermediate neutral and an overhead productgas oil are separated in the first stage vacuum tower. Spindle oil, light neutral and intermediate neutral are sent to the Lube Oil Extraction plants as feed stock or to storage. The distillates in excess of the lube oil requirements is sent hot as charge stock to Vacuum Distillate Desulphuriser (Plant 13) prior to thermal cracking of these intermediate products. The gas oil is routed to thermal cracker feed tank or directly to Plant 13. The bottoms product from first stage vacuum tower is reheated along with steam and fractionated to yield heavy neutral stream. Flash zone vapours of the second stage vacuum tower pass through a demister pad to prevent entrainment of asphaltenes into the heavy neutral stream. The heavy neutral stream is cooled and sent to intermediate storage tank as charge to Furfural

Extraction unit (Plant 8). A part of the second stage vacuum tower bottoms, vacuum residuum, is cooled and sent to Bitumen Air Blowing Unit (Plant 7). Another part is charged to the Visbreaker (Plant 6) and the balance is routed to light fuel oil blending. Plant 2 - Vapour Recovery Unit The vapour recovery unit consists of two sections (a) vapour recovery section and (b) merox treating section. The function of vapour recovery section is to separate gas, LPG, light gasoline and light naphtha from the overhead naphtha of atmospheric tower in plant 1. The merox treating section is for sweetening of LPG, a mixture of light gasoline and light cracked gasoline for gasoline blending, a mixture of light naphtha and heavy naphtha for JP-4 blending. The Vapour Recovery section is designed to process 75.8m3/hr. atmospheric tower overhead from crude unit. This section consists of a stabilizer with an LPG stripper and a splitter tower. The product yields from the unit are: (a) LPG 4-9 m3/hr. (b) Light gasoline 37-3 m3/hr. (c) Light naphtha 30-1 m3/hr. The feed to the unit from the stabilizer feed drum in the crude unit is preheated by exchangers and is admitted to the stabilizer column. The stabilizer separates the feed into gas, LPG and C^ bottoms. The heat required is obtained from a reboiler by exchanging heat with the bottom pump around of the atmospheric tower. LPG is drawn from tray No. 31 or 33 and the light hydrocarbons are stripped in a stripper. The stripped LPG is sent to merox extraction plant to remove mercaptans. The overhead gas sent partly to fuel gas treating system in the sulphur plant (Plant 12) and partly as feed to hydrogen plant after amine treating.

The bottoms of the stabilizer is fed to the naphtha splitter to produce light gasoline and light naphtha. The light gasoline is taken overhead and part of this is sweetened in Merox treating section to meet the requirements of gasoline blending and the balance is sent to raw naphtha storage tank. The light

naphtha is taken as bottoms product. This product is split into three streams. The first part is desulphurised in Unifmer and sent to Platformer as feed. The second part is sweetened in a Merox treater along with heavy naphtha according to the JP-4 blending requirement. The balance is diverted to the raw naphtha storage tanks. The Merox treating facilities has three treaters for processing three different streams. The streams processed are (a) LPG, (b) a mixture of light gasoline and light cracked gasoline for motor spirit blending and (c) a mixture of light naphtha and heavy naphtha for blending JP-4. Merox treating utilizes a proprietory process developed by Universal Oil Products Company. The treating can be classified into two categoriesextraction and sweetening. In the extraction system the mercaptans are removed from the feed stream whereas in the sweetening system the mercaptans are oxidised to disulphides and are left in the product stream. The LPG Merox treating is an extraction system designed to process 4-9 m3/hr. of LPG from Vapour Recovery section. The feed stream is treated with MEA and passed through a caustic scrubber to remove H2S from the feed stream. The N2 S free LPG then flows to the extractor where it meets a counter-current flow of Merox solution in a caustic soda medium. The mercaptans in the feed are extracted by the merox solution and the treated LPG is sent to storage. The spent Merox solution is sent to the oxidiser where the extracted mercaptans are oxidised to disulphides. The regenerated Merox solution is then pumped to the extractor. The extracted disulphides are pumped to the crude feed in Plant I. The light gasoline Merox treater is designed for a feed rate of 6-8 m^hr. consisting of a mixture of light gasoline from vapour recovery section and light cracked gasoline from visbreaker fractionacor in Plant 6. The Merox solution is regenerated in the common system for LPG and Merox. The treated gasoline is sent to storage and is blended with Reformate from Plant 3 to make motor gasoline. The Merox treatment of light naphtha is a sweetening process. The Merox catalyst is impregnated in a bed of activated charcoal using methanol and made alkaline by circulating caustic soda solution as a preparation to receive the feed stock. This treating unit is designed for a feed rate of 4'2 m^rir. consisting of light naphtha from Vapour Recovery section and heavy naphtha from Plant I. The treated naptha is sent to storage and later blended with other components to make JP-4. The naphtha feed stream is caustic scrubbed to remove naphthenic acids. Air is then injected to the feed stream and the feed stream is admitted to the top of the solid bed reactor. The mercaptans are oxidised to disulphides while passing through the bed and are carried along with the product stream. The sweetened naphtha passes through a caustic settler to remove entrained caustic. Periodically the caustic from the settler is recirculated through the catalyst bed to remove the absorbed traces of phenols, naphthenic acid and basic nitrogen compounds. The caustic when spent attains a brown colour and is discarded,

Plant No. 3 - Uni finer and Platformer Plant No. 3 consists of two inter-dependant sections (I) A Unifiner to remove sulphur and nitrogen compounds and saturate olefins in the light naphtha prior to reforming and (2) A Platformer to upgrade the low octane light naphtha to a high octane product. The Unifiner uses the hydrogen from Platformer to remove the undesirable compounds and supplies the feed to the Platformer. The feed stock for the Unifiner is a mixture of cracked naphtha from visbreaker fractionator in Plant 6 and light naphtha from the splitter in the Vapour Recovery unit. The feed stock is combined with hydrogen and heated to the reaction temperature of 347C. The vapourised feed is passed through a catalyst filled reactor. In the reactor the organic sulphur compounds are combined with hydrogen to form hydrogen sulphide and the nitrogen compounds are converted to ammonia. The unsaturated olefins are saturated with hydrogen to form haphthenes and paraffins. The reactor effluent is cooled and the ammonia, hydrogen sulphide and excess hydrogen are separated from the product. These separated gases are partly recycled and balance is sent to HSpO desulphurisation unit as treat gas. The liquid is sent to Platformer as feed after stripping dissolved hydrogen sulphide in a stripper.

Over a period of time the catalyst in the unifiner reactor will be coated with a deposit called coke. It is necessary to burn off the coke to reactivate the catalyst. For this purpose the unit will be shutdown and the deposited coke will be burnt by circulating inert gas through the reactor and injecting air at a controlled rate. This reactivation is common to all the hydrodesulphurisers and Platformer reactors.

The platforming unit converts the low octane naphtha from Unifiner to high octane reformate by convertion of straight chain compounds into cyclic compounds. The reaction is endothermic and therefore the feed stream is reheated after each reactor. The unit consists of three reactors operating in series with heaters before each reactor, a product separator, a debutinizer and hydrogen recycle facilities. The feed from the Unifmer is mixed with hydrogen, passed through three sets of heaters and reactors. The reactor effluent from the final reactor is cooled by heat exchange and is sent to a separator drum. The reaction produces hydrogen which is separated from the hydrocarbons and is partly recycled to the feed stream and balance is routed to the Unifiner. The separated effluent is then sent to a debutinizer. The overhead product of debutinizer is supplied as a part of feed gas to hydrogen plant and the bottom product, the reformate is sent to storage tank.

Plant 4 -Kerosene Hydrodesulphurisation Unit The purpose of the plant is to reduce sulphur content of the raw kerosene by treating with hydrogen. During the treatment some of the aromatic hydrocarbons are converted to cycloparaffins which results in an increase in the smoke point. The plant is designed to process 62-5 n^/hr. of raw kerosene from Plant I or from intermediate storage. The hydrogen requirement is met by the hydrogen rich gas from HSDO desulphuriser and balance is made up from Plant II. The feed mixed with hydrogen is passed through the reactor after heating to the required reaction temperature in the charge heater. After separation of the reaction gases and excess in a two stage separators, the effluent is sent to the stripper. The stripper bottoms is the finished product which is sent to the product storage after cooling. The hydrogen rich gas from the separator is sent as feed to hydrogen plant or to fuel gas after recovering the Hi S by amine treating in sulphur plant. Plant 5 - Diesel Oil Hydrodesulphurisation Plant The function of this plant is to desulphurise the part of the diesel (approximately 50%) produced in Plant I by catalytic hydrogenation. The desulphurised diesel and the balance of the raw diesel and heavy paphtha are line blended in this unit to produce HSD product. The plant is designed to process 31'5 m^hr. of feed. The hydrogen gas is supplied from Unifmer, Lube oil Hydrofinisher and Vacuum Distillate HDS units. The hydrogen requirement over and above that supplied by these units is met from the hydrogen plant. The feed mixed with recycle gas and make up hydrogen is heated in a furnace and passed through the reactor. The effluent from the reactor is cooled and the excess hydrogen and other products of reaction are separated in a separator drum. The liquid Is steam stripped in a stripper. The overhead system of this stripper is common to the stripper in Plant 13 also. The desulphurised diesel is yielded from the bottom of the stripper. The hydrogen rich recycle gas from the separator drum is treated with 15% MEA solution to remove Hi S before recycling. A portion of the separator offgas is sent to Plant 5 as treat gas. The liquid from the overhead system of the stripper is sent to IC-22 in Plant I and the vapours to the overhead system of atmospheric tower.

Plant 6 - Visbreaker and Thermal Cracker The function of the Visbreaker and Thermal cracker units is to process high viscosity Vacuum Residuum and desulphurised vacuum distillate from Plant 13 respectively into lower viscosity products. This process therefore helps to upgrade the product directly by producing low viscosity gas oils and naphthas. Visbreaker is essentially a thermal cracking unit operated under mild condition i.e., lower severity. In a thermal cracking unit a heavy oil is heated and maintained at a high temperature for a period of time. This breaks up the larger molecules into smaller molecules falling in the range of gas to gas oils. The main disadvantage of the process is that the products obtained by thermal cracking tend to become unstable due to the olefihic compounds. The unit consists of a thermal cracker furnace, a visbreaker furnace, a visbreaker flash tower, a common fractionator and other facilities. The products obtained are: Light gasoline .... 2-3 m3/hr Cracked naphtha .... 3-8 m3/hr. Cracked gas oil .... 35-2 m3/hr. Thermal tar ... 137 m3/hr. Visbreaker tar ... 31-4 m3/hr. The design feed rate for the Thermal Cracker is 47.0 m3/hr of a mixture of vacuum distillates from Plant 13 and feed rate of the Visbreaker 50.6 m3/hr. of Vacuum Residuum from Plant I. The Thermal cracker feed is heated to a temperature of 493C under a back pressure of 18.6 kg/cm2 and is admitted to the visbreaker fractionator. The furnace is designed to provide sufficient residence time for effecting the cracking of the molecules. The visbreaker feed is heated to a temperature of 493C under a pressure of 15.1 kg/cm2. The visbreaker tar is separated from the furnace effluent in the visbreaker flash tower. The overhead vapour of the flash tower is routed to the visbreaker fractionator for fractionation. The visbreaker tar is routed to Heavy Fuel after adding cracked gas oil as cutter stock to maintain the desired viscosity. The product yielded from the Fractionator are thermal tar, cracked gas oil, cracked naphtha and cracked light gasoline. The thermal tar is cooled in a tempered water cooling system in Plant I and is routed to light fuel oil rundown. The gas oil draw off from the tower is used for three different purposes. They are a) to provide quench for the furnace effluents of both furnaces, b) to provide lean oil to absorber to recover the gasoline fractions in the gas and c) to provide tray wash for the visbreaker fractionator. The heat available in these streams are utilised to produce steam or to heat up other streams. The net gas oil is steam stripped and routed to the light fuel oil rundown along with thermal tar. Cracked naphtha is drawn from tray No. 19 and is sent to the Unifiner as feed stock. The overhead vapours are condensed and collected in the fractionator overhead drum. The liquid is pumped to a debutinizer tower and the gases are routed through an absorber to recover the gasoline fractions. The lean oil for the absorber are gas oil and naphtha. The absorbed gases are routed to fuel gas system through Plant 12. The debutinizer tower yields light cracked gasoline as bottom product and the overhead gases are sent along with the gases from the absorber to fuel gas system. The light cracked gasoline is sweetened in the Merox treater in Plant 2 along with light gasoline and later blended to gasoline.

Plant 7 - Bitumen Air Blowing Unit The Bitumen Air Blowing plant is designed to process 9-4 T/hr. of vacuum residuum from the crude unit to produce 204 metric tons per stream day of 80/100 penetration asphalt and 24.2 T/SD of 30/40 penetration asphalt. The feed stock is expected to have a penetration of 160 mm. The vacuum residuum feed is split into two streams (a) converter feed and (b) blending stock. In the converter the aromatics in the feed are oxidised to asphaltenes by air and the product from the converter will have a penetration between 30-40 mm. The feed to the converter enters in the top section and meets a counter-current air stream supplied by a compressor. The stock yielded from the converter

meets the specification of 30/40 penetration grade. A portion of this is sent to the 30/40 asphalt storage tank and the balance is blended with the blending stock to produce 80/100 penetration asphalt. The off-gases from the converter are cooled by direct contact with water to remove oil and then burnt in the heater I F-3.

Plant 8-Furfural Extraction Unit The Furfural Extraction Unit processes portions of all vacuum distillates in blocked out operations as the first step in converting these distillates into lubrication oil blending components. The extraction process removes aromatic and oxygenated compounds which have low viscosity index and tend to become unstable. The viscosity index of a component is based on a comparison of viscosity of the component with that of two reference oils which have the same viscosity at 210F as that of the component. Viscosity index gives an indication of the reduction in viscosity of the component at higher temperatures in comparison with that of the reference oil. The components in the feedstock that have low viscosity index form the smaller percentage of the feed. Furfural has an affinity for the aromatic and oxygenated compounds and, therefore, it is used for extracting them from the feed. The extracted aromatics are called extract and the refined stream is termed as raffmate. The plant is designed to process four feed stocksspindle oil, light neutral, intermediate neutral and heavy neutral, into two grades each of high viscosity index (HVI) and medium viscosity index (MVI) products. These feed stocks are run on a blocked out operation. The feed rates for the different stocks are tabulated below. Stock. Rate for HVI operation. Rate for MVI operation 1. 2. 3. 4. Spindle Oil Light neutral Intermediate neutral Heavy neutral 37 m^hr. 32-6 n^/hr. 27 m^hr. 23 m^hr. 33 m^hr. 33 m3/hr. 36 mi/hr. 33 ms/hr.

The raffinates from this unit are sent as the feed stock to the MEK dewaxing unit through intermediate storage tanks. For the purpose of discussion the unit may be divided into four sections. They are; a) Feed Extraction system, b) Raffinate system, c) Extract system, d) Furfural recovery and drying system. The air in the feedstock is removed by passing the feed through a deaerator. The deaeration of the feed stock is necessary to prevent oxidation of the furfural which will result in furfural losses and cause fouling and corrosion of the equipments. The deaerated feed is then heated to the required temperature and introduced in the extraction column. The temperature of the feed is maintained low enough to minimise the solubility of the paraffinic components in furfural solvent. The extraction is effected in the extraction column known as rotating disc contactor in which the furfural and feed are mixed thoroughly. Furfural is introduced at the top section of the extraction column and the feed at or near the bottom section. The extract mix is drawn from the bottom of the column and is routed to the extract recovery section and raffinate mix is routed to the raffinate recovery section to recover furfural from the respective streams. The major portion of furfural from the raffinate mix is recovered by heating the mixture in a heater and separating the furfural in the Raffinate vacuum flash tower. The bottom stream of the raffinate flash tower is then steam stripped to recover the residual solvent in raffinate stripper. The solvent free raffinate is then routed to storage. The furfural from the extract mix is recovered in a three stage system operating under different pressures. The solvent recovered from both of the systems are segregated into two streams called dry solvent, which does not come in contact with steam and wet solvent which comes in contact with steam. The solvent recovery system consists of two fractionators A and B and the CBM surge drum. The water and furfural mixture from the overhead of the raffinate and extract strippers are separated

in the CBM surge drum. The separated furfural is dried in the fractionator A and the furfural from water is recovered in fractionator B. The dry furfural collected in the bottom of the A fractionator is pumped back to the extraction column. The Raffinate from this unit is the feed stock for the MEK dewaxing unit. The extract is mixed with vacuum distillates and supplied to Thermal Cracker as feed stock.

Plant 9 - Dewaxing Unit The function of this unit is to improve the pour point of the feed stock by removing wax from the feed stock. The unit is designed to process 8 grades of furfural raffinates and unextracted light netural, intermediate neutral and heavy neutral vacuum distillates. The dewaxing is carried out on a blocked out operation. The dewaxing operation removes enough of heavy paraffins from the feed stock to lower the pour point of the product to meet the specification. The table given below indicates the design feed rates for the different feed stocks. Stock. 1. 2. 3. 4. HVI stock feed rate. 41-2 mS/hr. 34.3 m^hr. 36.9 mS/hr. 29.4 m^hr. MVI stock feed rate. 42-6 rn^hr. 36.3 m^hr. 39.6 m'/hr. 29.3 m^hr. LVI stock (unextracted) feed rate. 36.6 m^hr. 38.4m3/hr. 27.5 m^hr.

Spindle oil Light neutral Intermediate Heavy Neutral

The dewaxing is accomplished by mixing the waxy charge with a solvent oil consisting of equal proportions of Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) and Toluene, chilling the mixture to precipitate the wax and then filtering the resultant slurry to separate the wax. The feed stock is line mixed with the solvent and is chilled in a series of exchangers using vapourising ammonia as a cooling agent. The chillers are specially designed to scrape out the wax deposits on the heat transfer surface so as to have efficient heat transfer. After passing through the chillers the temperature of the solvent and feed mixture is lowered to18 to21C at which all the wax components crystallise. The scream is passed through the Vacuum Rotary filters. The filter consists of a shell and a cylindrical drum with the filter cloth. By means of a vacuum maintained inside the filter drum through a system of internal pipes, the solvent and oil are drawn through the filter cloth leaving a layer of wax on the cloth. The filter drum is continuously rotated by an electric motor and a rotary valve at the end of the filter drum subjects the filter cloth to vacuum or pressure. The wax layer is removed. The wax mix and the dewaxed oil are pumped to their respective section where the solvent is recovered and re-used. The facilities for solvent recovery from the wax mix and dewaxed oil are identical. The charge is heated using steam and is admitted to a flash tower where most of the solvent is recovered. The flash tower bottoms is then admitted to a stripper where it is steam stripped to remove the balance of the solvent. The solvents separated from the stripper and flash tower are segregated. The stripped wax is routed to a storage tank and is blended with other components to produce fuel oil. The dewaxed oil is sent to the Lube Oil Hydrofmisher (Plant 10) as feed stock. The wet solvent from the overhead of the stripper is collected in the solvent decanter where the water and solvent are separated. To minimise solvent losses the water from the decanter is passed through a MEK fractionator where the dissolved solvent is steam stripped and separated.

Plant 10 - Lube Oil Hydro finishing Unit The lube oil hydrofinisher employs a hydrogenation process to improve colour stability and lengthens the oxidation period of the finished lube stocks. The hydrogenation reduces sulphur, oxygen, nitrogen and undesirable carbon forming compounds without damaging the other properties of the lube oils. The plant is designed to process all the eleven lube oil stocks from MEK unit on a blocked-out operation. The feed rate for the spindle oil HVI and MV1 will be 30.6 m3 /hr. and for all other stocks will be 27.8 m^hr. The products from this unit are the finished lube oil blending components and are delivered to off-plot storage tanks. The process flow through this unit is similar to the other hydrogen treaters. The feed is mixed with hydrogen, heated in heater and passed through a three bed reactor. Recycle gas is added to the second and third bed to control the temperature. The effluent is cooled and separated from the excess hydrogen and the other gases formed by reaction. The off-gas from the separator is MEA treated to remove Hz S and is recycled to the reactor and the feed stream, and part of it sent to Plant 5 as makeup gas. The make-up hydrogen for this plant is supplied from Hydrogen plant (Plant No. II). The liquid from the separator is steam stripped in a vacuum stripper and then dried in a vacuum drier to remove traces of water. The product from the vacuum drier is cooled and then sent to~storage. The overhead liquid from the stripper is pumped to IC-22 in Plant I.

Plant 11 - Hydrogen Plant The function of Plant II is to produce enough hydrogen for the use in the hydrofinishers. The plant converts the light hydrocarbon gas feed into hydrogen by reaction with steam in presence of catalyst at a temperature of 815C. The reaction proceeds as follows: CH4 + H2 0 - CO + 3H2 CO + H2 0 CO2 + H2 Heavier hydrocarbons and steam react to form CH4 , CO and CO2 , and then CH4 reacts with steam as shown above. The hydrogen plant is designed for a feed rate of 1680 m3 /hr. of hydrocarbon gas not heavier than butane to produce 11,160 m3/hr. of hydrogen. The normal feed to the plant consists of all the platformer stabilizer off-gas plus a mixture of off-gas from Plant 4, stabilizer off-gas from Plant 2. During Platformer shutdown, all the feed gas will be supplied by Plant 2. The feed gas from Plant 4 and plant 2 are combined and MEA treated in Plant 12 to remove 1-h S before it Is sent to the hydrogen plant. The process can be divided into three sections (a) reforming (b) shift conversion and (c) methanation. The feed gas is desulphurised by passing through two zinc oxide beds. The desulphurised feed is then mixed with sufficient steam to complete the reaction through the shift conversion and passed through the reforming furnace. The radiant tubes in the furnace are filled with reforming catalyst. The temperature is maintained at 815C. Reaction (I) is completed when it leaves the reforming furnace and reaction (2) is partially attained. Therefore, the reforming is followed by a catalytic conversion at lower temperature, which is known as shift conversion. In the shift converter the steam and CO react to form COz and Hi. The gas leaving C02 absorber contains small amount of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide which are detrimental to the catalyst in hydrodesulphurisers as they form corrosive acids during the processing. Therefore CO and C02 are reconverted to methane by a catalytic reaction with hydrogen which is called methanation. The reaction proceeds as follows : CO2 + 4H2 - CH4 +2H20 CO + 3H2--CH4 + H20 The reaction takes place over a nickel catalyst at a temperature of 315C. The methanator effluent gas is hydrogen of 95% purity and sent to the two stage compression system. Hydrogen requirements of Plants 4 and 5 are met after the first stage compression and that of Plant 13 and 10 after second stage compression.

The heat in the reformer effluent is used to produce steam in a waste-heat boiler and this steam is used for the process. Supplementary requirement is obtained from H.P. steam and excess, if any, is routed to the MP steam header.

Pant 12-Sulphur Recovery Plant The hydrogen treating of kerosene, diesel, vacuum distillates nd lube oil component produces hydrogen sulphide. Hydrogen sulphide is also present in crude which is evolved with gases from Plant I and Plant 2. In the sulphur plant, the hydrogen sulphide is recovered by absorption by a 15% solution of MEA. The absorbed H2S is then recovered from MEA solution and is converted into sulphur. The conversion of Hz S to elemental sulphur is accomplished in two stages-first in the thermal reaction boiler and secondly by in the catalytic converter. The reaction proceeds as follows: 2H2 S + 3H2 0- 2 S02 + 2H2 0 (I) S02 + 2H2 S 3S + 2H2 0 (2) Reaction No. (2) is partially completed In the reaction boiler and is completed in the converters. The Hi S stream from the MEA regenerator is mixed with proper proportion of air and is reacted in the reaction boiler. The reaction is exothermic. The heat evolved is utilised to produce MP steam. The gases are then passed through the two converters. The gas from the convertor is passed through a coalescer which removes entrained sulphur from the gases. Liquid sulphur is withdrawn from reaction boiler, converters and the coalescer into a pit. The sulphur is shipped in a liquid state from the pit or is sent to the refrigeration system for solid ification. The tail gas from the coalescer is burnt in the stack of the heater in Plant 8 or alternatively in the flare stack. Sulphur plant has the facilities to process all the sour water collected from various plants. In this section the water is stripped off all hydrogen sulphide in the sour water stripper and the stripped water is drained to sewer.

Plant 13 - Vacuum Distillate Hydrodesulphurisation Unit The Vacuum Distillate HDS unit processes the vacuum distillates in excess of that needed to meet the lube oil product requirements. The desulphurised product is the feed to the Thermal Cracker in Plant 6. The plant Is designed to process 43.6 m3 /hr. of feed which is a mixture of the following components. (a) First stage vacuum tower gas oil from Plant I 4.3 m3/hr. (b) Spindle oil distillate from Plant I 10.8 m3hr. (c) Light neutral distillate from Plant I 8.8 m3/hr. (d) Intermediate Neutral distillate from Plant I 15.95 m3/hr. (e) Furfural unit extracts 3.75 m3/hr. Total 43.6 m3/hr. The process flow through the HDS unit is similar to that in the other HDS units. The reactor has three beds of catalyst proportioned to give approximately equal rise in temperature. Recycle gas is admitted in between the beds to limit the temperature rise across the bed. The recycle gases are amine treated to remove H2S. The reactor effluent is steam stripped to remove light hydrocarbons. The stripper overhead vapours are condensed in the common overhead condenser of the HSDO stripper in Plant 5. The desulphurised vacuum distillate is fed directly to Plant 6 as feed or cooled and sent to the visbreaker feed storage tank.

Utilities System Utilities are the common requirements that are necessary for the refining of crude oil. These common items, that are necessary for the proper operation of the refinery, are required in such quantities that it is economical to supply them from a central source rather than provide separate facilities for individual plant. The items that come under utilities are steam, electricity, cooling water, boiler feed water, fuels and compressed air facilities. Water supply to the refinery comes from the wells located 14 to 20 kilometers away from the refinery. These wells are operated by the State Water Supply department. Adequate facilities to ensure uninterrupted water supply are provided at the site. Boiler Feed Water Treating and Steam Generation A schematic representation of the treated water system and steam is shown in the accompanying figure. To prevent scale formation in the tubes of the steam generating equipment the feed water must be treated. Salts of silica, magnesium, calcium and iron in the water form scales. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide are corrosive gases. The raw water from the fresh water pond containing hardness of about 210 ppm is first softened in a cold lime softener to about 115 ppm. Water is then passed through a set of cat-ionic softeners. The ion-exchange softeners are filled with resins. The cat-ionic softener removes the calcium magnesium and sodium ions by exchanging place with hydrogen ion. The bed is regenerated periodically by dilute hydrochloric acid. The anionic softener removes the sulphate, chlorate and silica ions by replacing the hydroxyl ions in the anionic resin. The bed is regenerated with a weak solution of sodium hydroxide. The demineralised water is used as feed water to the main boilers and waste heat boilers in the units. The steam to the units is supplied by means of common headers running through the plants and to the tank farm. There are three systems of steam supply (a) the high pressure steam under a pressure of 31-5 kg. per sq. cm. (b) the medium pressure steam at a pressure of 10-5 kg. per sq. cm. (c) the low pressure steam of 3.5 kg. per sq. cm. pressure. There are three boilers to supply the steam requirements of the units and for power generation. In addition to these boilers steam is also produced in Plants 6, 7, II and 12. The main boilers are operated at a pressure of 50 kgs per sq. cm. This very high pressure steam is used for (a) driving two turbogenerators to produce electricity (b) to drive the turbines of two of the cooling water pumps (c) to supply H. P. steam and (d) to make-up the requirements of MP steam and LP steam. The HP steam obtained by desuperheating the steam from the boilers is used for turbine drives in the boiler and water treatment sections. The MP steam is supplied from turbines of the generator and from the boilers in the unit. The balance is made up by desuperheating steam from the main boiler. The low pressure steam is derived from the generator turbine exhaust steam from the cooling water pump turbines, exhaust of the turbine drives in the boiler plant and from the boilers in Plant 12. The low pressure steam is used for deaeration of the boiler feed water, for heating products in storage tanks and in some strippers in the unit. Fuel System The fuel supply for the heaters in the process plants and boilers comes from the fuel gas system and the fuel oil system. Fuel gas is primarily produced from the vapour Recovery unit and the desulphurisers. The fuel oil is supplied from a tank of 790 cubic meters capacity by means of a pump. The pump discharges into a header that runs to all the heaters and boilers. To maintain a steady pressure and an even flow a circulation line returns part of the fuel oil back to the tank. The fuel oil tank is filled with the visbreaker tar from Plant 6. Fire Water System

Water for fire fighting requirements is supplied from the oxidation basin of the effluent water from the API separator. The system has one low pressure pump and two pumps of higher capacity and greater discharge pressure. Normally the smaller pump will be kept running to maintain the fire water header under pressure and also to supply minor requirements from the header. For fire fighting, the higher capacity pumps will be used. One of the pumps can be started remotely from the control room. The fire water lines are run around the process units and throughout the refinery and is provided with hydrants and monitors at suitable locations. Drinking Water The drinking water is served through a 2' line from the discharge of the raw water pumps at the fresh water pond. The water is properly chlorinated and is served by a separate header running to places where needed. Compressed Air Facilities The compressed air required for the operation of the instruments and for driving the pneumatic tools is supplied by two compressors. Normally only one compressor is required for meeting the consumption. The air supplied to the instruments is dried through air driers to remove moisture. The air driers are filled with dessicants to adsorb the moisture and are regenerated periodically. A back pressure controller is provided in the service air line to preferentially supply the instrument air requirement in case the total air requirement is higher than the input.

OIL MOVEMENTS & STORAGE The storage and shipments of crude, intermediate and finished products is a necessary part of the refining operations. The purpose of the storage tanks is to ensure the availability of the stocks in adequate quantities for continuous operation or provide storage for the feed stocks to the units on blocked out operation or to have sufficient quantities for the bulk shipments. The storage and shipping operations are carried out by the Oil Movement and Storage Division (0. M. & S). The broad functions of the 0. M. & S Division are: (a) receiving and storing crude oil, (b) feeding the units with respective feed stocks and receiving the products into tanks, (c) blending of the components produced in the units into finished products, (d) moving finished porducts and (e) oil recovery from the API separator system. The storage tanks of the products can be broadly classified into two categories: (a) Pressure tanks, (b) Atmospheric tanks. The high vapour pressure products like LPG are stored in the pressure tanks and the low vapour pressure products are stored in atmospheric tanks. The products like gasoline naphtha which have vapour pressure not high enough for pressure tanks, but high enough to have losses due to evaporation are stored in floating roof tanks to minimise the loss of product due to evaporation. The relative advantages and needs for the type of storage will be discussed in Equipment Fundamentals. The crude oil is brought from Persian Gulf by tankers and is pumped from the harbour by a 30" crude oil line to the crude tanks. The crude is then pumped to Plant No. I after settling and water draw off. The oil is processed into different fractions in the various units. The LPG, naphtha, kerosene and ATF-50 are received from the units directly in the product tanks. The raw diesel, desulphurised diesel and heavy naphtha are line blended in Plant 5 and is received in the diesel storage tank. The kerosene and diesel are provided with a common intermediate tank for storing the raw products during the shut down of Plants 4 and 5. The reformate from Plant No. 3 and treated gasoline (light gasoline) are also provided with a surge tank as a cushion for the gasoline blending requirements. Product Blending The products that are made by blending are (a) gasoline, (b) JP-4, (c) light diesel oil and (d) fuel oil. The table given below indicates the components of each of these products. Product Components Gasoline Treated gasoline and Reformate. LDO Diesel oil and Heavy fuel oil.

Fuel oil

Light fuel, heavy fuel, heavy neutral extract and slack wax.

The treated gasoline is merox treated mixture of light gasoline from Vapour Recovery unit and the light cracked gasoline from Visbreaker and Thermal Cracker unit (Plant 6). Heavy fuel oil consists of mainly visbreaker tar, vacuum residuum and small portion of cracked gas oil as it leaves Plant I. The light fuel oil is a mixture of thermal tar and cracked gas oil. These components are line mixed before leaving Plant I. The slack wax and heavy neutral extract are received in the nominated tanks from the units. The blending of the above mentioned products are carried out by Oil Movements and Storage Division in proper quantities to meet specification of the product. Product Movements The products other than LPG, Asphalt and Sulphur are moved by pipelines to the marketing terminals of Indian Oil Corporation, Esso Standard Eastern, Burmah - Shell and Caltex Oil Company. These marketing terminals distribute the products in the nearby areas by tank trucks and railway tank wagons. The major portion of the production is despatched by pipeline shipments. The products are also shipped by tankers to other parts of the country. LPG is filled into cylinders and asphalts into drums before they are moved by trucks and railway box wagons from the refinery. Facilities exist for loading LPG and asphalts in tank wagons. Most of the sulphur produced will be despatched by special type tank trucks. API Separator All the process water that has been in contact with oil and small quantities of oil from the packing glands of pumps and the draining from the sample points from the units are collected in sewer basin, by means of a common underground sewer system. In the sewer basin oil and water are separated. The separated oil is pumped to the wet slop tanks 801, 803 and 804. The water from the sewer basin is pumped by two electric pumps to the separator box for the recovery of oil. The oil separates from the water while flowing through the API separator and is skimmed off by an adjustable skimmer. The collected oil is pumped to the wet slop tanks. The skimmed water then flows to the oxidation basin which also serves as water reservoir for fire fighting purposes. The oxidation pond provides enough residence time for oxidation of any traces of oil that elude separation at the API Separator by microbiological organisms. The water overflowing from the oxidation pond is routed to the Buckingham canal. Provision is made to collect any oil that accumulates in the oxidation pond at the outlet of the pond. One must not get an impression that all the oil that is drained in the sewer is recovered. Some of the oil drained is lost to atmosphere by vapourisation, some by adhering to the sludge and some by oxidation in the pond. Very small quantity of oil is also lost via the effluent going to the canal from the oxidation pond. These losses may even be as high as 1.5% to 2 %. Therefore, it is very important that operators take special care not to drain oil to the sewer except when it is unavoidable and absolutely necessary. Draining of sample point before sampling should be limited to the extent necessary to obtain a representative sample. Drips and leaks from the joints in the pipelines and equipments should be repaired promptly. Remember that part of the oil drained is always lost to the atmosphere by evaporation, through the sludge and by oxidation in the pond and this oil could have been a valuable product. Remember that considerable sum of money can be lost by these types of non - recoverable oil loss. Corrosion Inhibitors And Additives Used In Process Units In the various phases of operation suitable inhibitors and chemicals for corrosion protection, fouling prevention and foam prevention are added depending on the nature of the stream. These chemicals are added in very small quantities and are usually expensive. The purpose of the addition of the inhibitors and chemicals is to achieve longer lengths of operation and longer life of the equipment. The addition of these chemicals and inhibitors are therefore very important and should be done within specified limits and conditions. The various chemicals and inhibitors are used.

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Process Units from Refinery

* 13,000 tpd Refinery * Naptha Refinery * Hydrotreater * Lube Oil Refinery

Process Units from 13,000 tpd (100,000 BPD) refinery Process Units 1. 8500 tpd (60,000 bpd) Naphtha Minus Complex, NMC, with Hysomer and sieve section to increase octane from 66 to 88. built in 1991 as PAUs (pre-assembled units) Feed Naphtha, final product 90+ octane petrol Shell Technology. 2. 3500 tpd (26,000 bpd) Hydocraker to produce naphtha from VDU bottoms. (2) 150 bar reactors, low pressure side 10-15 bar, high pressure side 150 bar. Including (3) 2400 kw H2 compressors, 150 bar. 3. 2000 tpd (15,000 bpd) Keromode unit to upgrade cut of Naphtha from Hydrocraker to Kerosene for jet

fuel. 4. 4500 tpd (34,000 bpd) Kerosene Hydrotreater, to remove sulfur and H2S from kerosene. 5. (2) 10 MW steam turbine generators, pass through turbine, 100 bar inlet, 17 bar exhaust, 2,800 tpd steam for each turbine. Back to top Units from Naphtha Refinery 1. 7,250 BPD cyclohexane plant, feedstock toluene, benzene, hydrogen 2. Tank farm (tanks and spheres) from 50,000 bpd naphtha refinery For Lease Back to top Hydrotreater 4,500 B/D Hydrotreater for desulphurization of diesel or gasoline, 600 psi pressure, dual reactor, built late 1980s. Previously used for niche application by major international oil company. Back to top Process units from 30,000 barrels per day Lube OIL refinery Process Units: The manufacture of lubricating oil basestock/bitumen is done through five (5) distinct unit processes, namely: High Vacuum Unit (HVU). The HVU processes the reduced crude (long residue) feedstock into four (4) distillate products. It also produces gas oil and a short residue bottoms product. Distillation is done by heating the feedstock to about 380C and then feeding it into a vacuum tower where high vacuum is maintained. Propane Deasphalting Unit (PDU). The PDU processes short residue (vacuum residue) from the High Vacuum Unit. The process employs the principle of solvent extraction to separate the lighter paraffinic fraction from the heavier asphaltic fraction of the charge stock. Liquid propane is used as the solvent which removes the deasphalted oil (DAO), leaving an asphalt stream behind for use in the manufacture of bitumen and fuel oil which are sold as secondary products. Propane extraction is accomplished in two extraction towers operated at about 30 bar. Furfural Extraction Unit (FEU). The FEU processes distillates and DAO and uses furfural solvent to remove the aromatic molecules from the feed. A high level of aromatic components is detrimental to lube oil performance and so the majority is removed in this unit and blended into the refinery fuel oil pool. MEK Dewaxing Unit (MDU). The MDU processes raffinates from the FEU and deasphalted oil (DAO) from the PDU. It uses a mixture of MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) and Toluene as solvent in extracting wax from the lubeoil and makes it suitable for low temperature applications. The wax that is removed is either blended into fuel oil or sold as secondary product. Bitumen Blowing Unit (BBU). The BBU and its attendant facility, was constructed to produce high quality bitumen that meets Shell brand specifications. The Bitumen Blowing Unit (BBU) improves the quality of the

present paving grade production through oxy-conversion. Back to top