3 replies to this topic

[KHAQAN ALI KHAN]

Dear All,

 

I have some questions related to increasing capacity of refinery units. 

 

1. What is meant by increasing capacity of refining unit (in both technical as well as economical sense)?

2. What if a refinery is already at its maximum operating capacity and even higher say 105% and if we are to increase its capacity what steps should we take (in terms of investment and revamping of current refinery) considering the current refinery units as detailed below:

 

1. CDU and VDU

2. Vis breaker unit

3. Gas concentration Unit

4. Kero Merox Unit

5. LPG merox unit

6. Diesel Max Unit (to enhance diesel from LVGO and HVGO)

7. NHT/Platformer/CCR

8. DHDS unit

9. Sulfur recovery unit

10. ASphalt Air blowing unit (for visbreaking unit residue)

11. Amine Treating Unit

12. Sour water treatment facility

 

Suggest some ideas to increase such units' capacity  or refinery as whole when refinery's total current capacity is 100,000 bbl/day ?

 

Kindly suggest some ideas.

 

Regards,

Khaqan Ali Khan

[ColinR33]

That is a pretty vague request. You really have to perform a debottlenecking study in order to determine where you capacity bottlenecks (restrictions) are (hence the name). Only then can you truly determine with any degree of certainty what needs to be modified. It may turn out that you have additional capacity in some units while others are holding you back. Such a study does involve an expenditure of resources (and $$$) and depending on the size and scope, can take 12-18 months or even more to complete, but unless you do it you are really just guessing at what you need to do and that will end up costing you more in the long run and can also have safety implications which can open up a whole 'nother world of hurt.

HTH

[gegio1960]

1) I share Colin words

2) if you have to increase refinery capacity, by definition, you have to increase CDU capacity... and follow all the impacts on the downstream units.

3) you can increase production capacity by saturating the spare capacity of other units (other than CDU) by importing raw products from outside (eg: atmospheric or vacuum residues, straight run or vacuum gasoils, cycle and deasphalted oils, fuel oils, cracked napthas, etc...)

4) you can increase the production capacity of more valuable products by install one or more conversion unit (eg FCC, HCK, RHC etc..)

5) you can do other things...depending on the starting point

6) you need markets, money, time, experienced people...

7) you need linear programming ;-)

8) you need LUCK :-)))

[gegio1960]

Befor thinking about expansion, the first thing that you should do for your refinery is to add an Isomerization unit.

I suspect your gasoline has too much aromatics.