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Crude Oil Distillation Process – How

the Automation and Control Strategies
Can Guarantee the Profitability to the
Downstream Industry?
Published on October 8, 2019
Dr. Marcio Wagner da Silva, MBA

Process Engineer and Project Manager at 48 articles Following
Petrobras
Despite the efforts to reduce the consume, petroleum still represents the major part of the
global energy matrix and has a strategic role in any nation that desires to reach superior
economic and technologic development.
The crude oil, as found in the reservoirs, has few industrial uses, to become useful and
economically attractive is necessary to separate the fractions in products that have a specific
industrial interest like fuels (LPG, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, etc.), lubricants or petrochemical
intermediates. To achieve this objective the crude oil is submitted to a series of physical and
chemical processes aim to add value to the commodity, to the set of processes we called
refining complex.
In the refining complex, the first and principal process applied to add value to the crude oil
is the distillation. This processing unit defines the processing capacity of the refinery and,
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normally the other process units are sized on the basis of his yields. Figure 1 shows a basic Try Premium Free
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process flow diagram for a typical atmospheric crude distillation unit.
Figure 1 – Process Flow Diagram for a Typical Atmospheric Crude Oil Distillation Unit
The crude oil is pumped from the storage tanks and preheated by hot products that leaving
the unit in heat exchangers battery, then the crude oil stream receive an injection of water
aim to assist the desalting process, this process is necessary to remove the salts dissolved in
the petroleum to avoid severe corrosion problems in the process equipment. The desalting
process involves the application of an electrical field to the mixture crude oil-water aim to
raise the water droplets dispersed in the oil phase and accelerate the decanting, as the
solubility of the salts is higher in the aqueous phase the major part of the salts is removed in
the aqueous phase effluent from the desalter, called brine. Normally the petroleum desalting
process is carried out at temperatures among 120 and 160 oC, higher temperatures raise the
conductivity of the oil phase and prejudice the phase separation, and this can lead to drag oil
to the brine and result in process inefficiency.
In the desalter exit, the desalted oil is heated again by hot products or pump around and fed
into a flash drum, in this equipment the lighter fractions are separated and sent directly to the
atmospheric tower, the main role of this vessel is reduce the thermal duty needed in the
furnace. Following, the stream from the bottom of the flash vessel is heated in the fired
heater to temperatures close to 350 to 400 oC (depending on the crude oil to be processed)
and is fed the atmospheric tower where the crude oil is fractionated according to the
distillation range, like the example presented in Table 1.
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At the exit of the atmospheric tower, the products are rectified with steam aim to remove the
lighter components.
The gaseous fraction is normally directed to the LPG (C3-C4) pool of the refinery and the
fuel gas system (C1-C2) where will feed the furnaces and boilers. The light naphtha is
normally commercialized as petrochemical intermediate or is directed to the gasoline pool of
the refining complex, the heavy naphtha can be sent to the gasoline pool and in some cases,
this stream can be added to the diesel pool since not compromise the specification
requirements of this product (Cetane number, density and flash point). Kerosene is normally
commercialized as jet-fuel while the atmospheric residue is sent to the vacuum distillation
tower, in some refining schemes it’s possible sent this stream directly to the residue fluid
catalytic process unit (RFCC), in this case, the content of the contaminants (mainly metals)
of the residue needs to be very low to protect the catalyst of the cracking unit.
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Nowadays, face to the necessity to reduce the environmental impact of the fossil fuels
associated with the restrictive legislation, difficultly the straight run products can be
commercialized directly. The streams are normally directed to the hydrotreating units to aim
to reduce the content of the contaminants (sulfur, nitrogen, etc.) before being marketed.
In distillation units with higher processing capacity, normally the flash drum upstream of the
atmospheric tower is substituted by a pre-fractionation tower. In this case, the main
advantage is the possibility of reduction of the atmospheric tower dimensions that implies in
cost reductions associated with the unit implementation and improve the hydraulic behavior
in the distillation tower, consequently with better fractionation. This arrangement is shown
in Figure 2.
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Figure 2 – Typical arrangement to Atmospheric Distillation with Pre-Fractionation Tower.
As aforementioned, the residue from the atmospheric distillation column is sent to the
vacuum distillation tower, this strategy is adopted since under atmospheric column process
conditions the continuity of heating leads to the thermal cracking of the residual fractions. In
the vacuum distillation column, the atmospheric residue is submitted to reduced pressures
aim to recover the lighter fractions that can be converted to the high- value products.
Figure 3 shows a typical process scheme of a vacuum distillation unit focusing on producing
fuels.
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Figure 3 – Schematic Process Flow Diagram for Vacuum Distillation Try Premium Free
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The light vacuum gas oil (LVGO) is normally sent to the hydrotreating units to be
incorporated into the diesel pool of the refinery while the heavy vacuum gas oil (HVGO) is
directed to catalytic cracking units or hydrocracking, depending on refining scheme adopted
by the refiner, another possibility is to use this stream like dilutant to produce fuel oil. In
some processes configurations, there is still a withdrawn of the stream called residual
vacuum gas oil aim to keep the quality of heavy gas oil in the relation to carbon residue and
metals content to avoid the rapid deactivation of the catalyst of this unit.
The vacuum residue is normally directed to produce asphalt and fuel oils, however, in most
modern refineries this stream is sent to bottom barrel units as delayed coking and solvent
deasphalting to produce higher-value products.
The distillation unit design is strongly dependent on the characteristics of crude oil
that will be processed by the refinery, for extra-heavy oils normally the crude is fed directly
to the vacuum column. The design is generally defined based on a limited crude oil range
that can be processed in the hardware (Contaminant content, API grade, etc.).
To compensate these variations in the raw material, the control and automation system are
fundamentals to achieve the objectives of meet the derivatives specifications and maximize
the profitability in the crude oil distillation process. Nowadays, it’s impossible to think in an
efficient crude distillation process without an adequate control system.
The operating pressure is a fundamental variable to the distillation processes, the

relative volatility varies according to the pressure and adequate control leaves a good
stability for the separation column. Figure 4 presents a classical strategy to control a
distillation column when the distillate flow rate is sufficiently high to permit control of the
top drum level through this variable.
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Figure 4 – Classical Control Strategy for Distillation Columns with a high distillation flow
rate.
In this case, the top pressure is controlled through the action in the flow rate of gases leaving
from the top drum, this condition is adequate when the light content in the crude oil is
relatively high. The level in the bottom of the column is controlled by the bottom product
flow rate and the temperature is controlled by the flow rate of steam or another heat supplier
to the column. Again, this strategy is adequate when the internal reflux of the distillation
column is not much higher when compared with the flow rates withdrawn. The major part of
crude oil distillation columns falls into this case. When the composition of side streams is
relevant, normally are installed analyzers in these streams to control the composition acting
in the reflux flow rate.
For separation with a high reflux flow rate, normally the hard separations, it is
necessary to change the control strategy, an example is presented in Figure 5.
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Figure 5 – Example of Control Strategy for Distillation Columns to hard separations
In these cases, the composition is very sensitive to the temperature variation, to reduce these
variations the bottom level is used to control the bottom temperature through the reboiler
and the bottom flow rate is manipulated to control the composition, in the top of column the
composition is controlled by the analyzer acting in the reflux flow rate.
The distillation process is the first step of the crude oil is submitted, the others process units
are strongly impacted by the quality of products from the distillation unit, mainly in relation
to fractionation quality achieved in the distillation columns, a bad fractionation can lead to
an off-specification products (color, Sulfur content, corrosivity, etc.) or irreversible damages
to catalysts or process equipment, thus this unit requires special attention by the refiner once
every chain of value generation to the crude oil processing depends on this process, the
success of the crude distillation process is strongly linked with the adequate control
strategy.
References:
SEADER, J.D.; HENLEY, E.J. Separation Process Principles. 2nd ed. John Wiley &
Sons, 2006.
FAHIM, M.; AL-SAHHAF, T.; ELKILANI, A. Fundamentals of Petroleum

Refining. Elsevier, 2009.
OGATA, K. Modern Control Engineering. 5th ed. Prentice-Hall, 2010.

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Dr. Marcio Wagner da Silva is

Process Engineer and Project
Manager focusing on Crude Oil
Refining Industry based in São
José dos Campos, Brazil. Bachelor
in Chemical Engineering from
University of Maringa (UEM),
Brazil and PhD. in Chemical
Engineering from University of
Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil.
Has extensive experience in
research, design and construction
to oil and gas industry including
developing and coordinating
projects to operational
improvements and
debottlenecking to bottom barrel
units, moreover Dr. Marcio Wagner have MBA in Project Management from Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and is certified in Business from Getulio Vargas
Foundation (FGV).
Note - This article was Originally Published in the March 2018 Issue of the Industrial
Automation Magazine
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Published by
Dr. Marcio Wagner da Silva, MBA 48 articles Following

Process Engineer and Project Manager at Petrobras
Published • 1w
A Little Introduction of the Control Strategies in Crude Oil Distillation Units... #crudeoildistillation#
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35 Comments
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Dr. Marcio Wagner da Silva, MBA • Following

Interesting Information: 3d
http://ceng.tu.edu.iq/ched/images/lectures/chem-lec/st4/c2/lec.8.pdf
Like Reply
Isakh M.
Hi, very good information, so thank you! I am also interested and doing my diploma work on MTBE 1d
production from unsaturated LPG gases, I would like to get your tips, advice and help for sure, Thank
you, Dr. Marcia, you are the best !!!
Like Reply 1 Like · 1 Reply
Dr. Marcio Wagner da Silva, MBA • Following

Dear, Mr. Isakh M.! 21h
Thank you for your kind words, I’m just a professional trying to improve my knowledge.
Regards, …see more

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