Planning And Integration Of Refinery And Petrochemical Operations
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Planning and Integration of Refinery and Petrochemical Operations
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Beyond individual unit changes, refiners can further shift their product yield toward petrochemical feedstock by changing the mix and arrangement of refinery process units. A typical modern refinery employs dozens of process technologies, each focused on a different product yield. Coking, residual hydrocracking, and visbreaking eliminate residuum; FCC, isomerization, reforming, and alkylation maximize gasoline output; and hydrocracking maximizes diesel and jet fuel production. Specific changes in refinery design and operation would increase petrochemical yields.
Not all plants are equally well placed to shift toward higher petrochemical yields. Larger refineries typically are in a better position to add new process units because their scale reduces unit capital costs and provides greater flexibility in design, location, and integration. There is also a clear advantage for plants that already have some of the more desirable chemical-oriented processes (such as hydrocracking and reforming) and supporting processes (such as hydrogen generation, aromatics separation and handling, and light-ends storage).Plants that are less complex or that are heavily invested in FCCs and other gasoline technologies may require a level of reconfiguration on par with building a new plant.
Many refineries already benefit from physical integration with a petrochemical plant and are even co-located and operated as a single site. This integration leads to reduced costs of handling and moving exchanged streams; better overall optimization of refining and chemical plant throughput; and scale-driven efficiencies in the cost of maintenance and operations support. While these advantages may not be enough to justify building a new chemical plant at an existing refining site, the refinery might require further reconfiguration to be more focused on petrochemicals.
3. Appraisal is the process to evaluate how the refinery actually performed versus the final original optimised plan, typically a monthly plan and the annual T&R plan. The objective is to learn where the refinery did well and where not. This, to be able to take corrective actions for better planning & optimisation and ultimately improved financial performance in the future.
** Sri Lanka's Sapugaskanda refinery has resumed operations Aug. 20, the country's Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera said on his Twitter account. A 100,000 mt of crude oil has been discharged and another one of 120,000 mt will be discharged this week which will enable the refinery to operate at full capacity for 40 days. The refinery has halted operations several times since November 2021 over shortages of crude oil.
** South Korea's fire officials have allowed refiner S-Oil to continue to operate four units at its Onsan refinery, a company source said on Aug. 26, which were ordered to shut over Sept. 1-15 due to a violation against safety regulations, according to media reports. S-Oil was ordered by local fire officials on Aug. 22 to suspend operations at four units, including the No. 2 and No. 3 crude distillation units. The refiner was also ordered to shut the hydrocracker and the paraxylene units at the Onsan refinery.
** India's Reliance Industries Ltd is planning a maintenance shutdown for 30 days starting Sept. 10 at unit 2 of Jamnagar special economic zone refinery, which has a capacity of 41 million mt/year, a company official said Aug. 10. The shutdown may get extended by up to 10 days in case of any exigency, the official added. The unit 2 of the refinery is an export-oriented one in the special economic zone. "Such shutdowns take place once in three years. The last time it was scheduled in 2019, it got rescheduled to March 2020 but because of COVID-19, the plan got deferred," the source said.
** India's Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. plans to carry out a maintenance shutdown in March-April 2023, as part of a regular turnaround after a gap of four years. The maintenance will last 30 days during which operations at the refinery will come to a halt. "All units will be shut as we are a single train refinery," a company official said. The refinery, in the eastern state of Assam, has been carrying out an expansion project to raise the processing capacity to 9 million mt (180,000 b/d) by 2024-25 (April-March). The expansion plan will add a second crude distillation unit of 6 million mt/year. In April, the refinery's run rate stood at 110% compared with 90% a year earlier.
** India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd will raise the petrochemical intensity level at its three refineries to 8% in fiscal year 2026-27 (April-March) from the current level of around 1%. BPCL is planning two new projects -- an ethylene cracker project at the Bina refinery and a polypropylene project at the Kochi refinery. The refiner is carrying out feasibility studies and other pre-project activities for these two planned projects. "The projects are likely to take around four years for completion once the environmental clearance is received," said one official.
The project also includes doubling the crude processing capacity to 100,000 b/d. The upgraded complex will also produce propylene, which is a valuable feedstock for petrochemicals. Following the completion of FEED, the refinery will award an engineering procurement and construction contract. Pakistan Refinery plans to complete the project in five years, or around 2027.
** Pertamina's Balongan refinery is upgrading and aims to increase capacity to 150,000 b/d. It is also upgrading its residue cracking unit and expects to complete the revamp in 2022. The unit will have 83,000 b/d capacity. The project is expected to be completed in 2026. Pertamina will build the project in three phases. The first phase will raise refining capacity to 150,000 b/d by 2022, from 125,000 b/d. The second and third phases will increase the product yield from the refinery, including from the new petrochemical plant.
** India's Indian Oil Corp. will invest around $1.2 billion for a new crude pipeline system to connect the Mundra port on the west coast with its Panipat refinery in northern India. The new pipeline system will have a nameplate capacity of 17.5 million mt/year. "The project is expected to be completed within 36 months and would be synchronized with the commissioning of the Panipat refinery expansion project," IOC said in a regulatory filing in December. The project will meet enhanced crude oil demand arising from the capacity expansion of the refinery to 25 million mt/year by 2025 from 15 million mt/year. The expansion project will be part of a petrochemicals integration plan for Panipat refinery. The expansion program includes an Indmax unit for deriving maximum value from the petrochemical molecule, a polypropylene unit, and a lube complex for producing lube oil base stock.
** India's Nayara Energy will complete the first phase of its petrochemicals expansion project, including the setting up of a 450,000 mt/year polypropylene plant, in 2023 at its 20 million mt/year refinery complex at Vadinar, Gujarat. Nayara, as part of its broader plan for its petrochemicals vertical, will set up a new propylene recovery unit along with upgrading the existing fluid catalytic cracking and LPG treatment units.
** State-run Indian Oil Corp. has awarded an engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning contract to Paris-based Technip for its expansion project at the Barauni refinery in the eastern state of Bihar. The contract involves the installation of a 1 million mt/year "once-through" hydrocracker unit, a fuel gas treatment unit and associated facilities. The expansion project will raise its capacity by 50% to 180,000 b/d and add petrochemicals such as polypropylene to its product portfolio. The initial plan for completing the capacity project was scheduled for 2021. But the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic may result in this being rescheduled.
Byco Petroleum typically produces 30%-40% fuel oil, or furnace oil as it is commonly called in the country, from each barrel of crude oil it refines. The product is mainly used by utilities for power generation. But furnace oil demand has weakened after utilities started using LNG, which is a cleaner alternative, said Wasi Khan. "Byco started development work to modernize its refinery by launching the Upgrade-I project at the start of this year which would be completed by 2025," he said. Civil work on the site and the arrival of equipment and machinery are underway, and the company is getting ready to install additional units. "Byco seeks to install 14 plants altogether, including fluid catalytic cracking and diesel hydro desulfurization units," Wasi Khan said. By the time it finishes, the company will have 19 plants at its oil refining complex. This equipment will help convert the bulk of Byco's furnace oil output into Euro 5 compliant gasoline and diesel and produce other high-quality fuels like jet fuel and kerosene. Meanwhile, Axens has been selected by Byco to support its upgrade projects Phases I, II and III. The scope of Axens' work includes "the supply of process design package for integration of three existing units into FCC gasoline hydrotreating configuration" as well as catalysts and adsorbents for the sulfur recovery unit and distillate hydrotreaters 2 and 3, and distillate hydrotreater 3 reactor internals. The start-up date of the complete Phases I, II and III is expected in Q2, 2024. Currently Pakistan's Byco refinery is rebranding under the name of Cnergyico Pk Ltd.