Refinery Engineering

Dr. Hirra Anjum

[email protected]
 Introduction
• 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 ($71.65 per barrel) has
affected the refining industry in three ways:
1. An increased search for fuel products from non-fossil
sources such as biodiesel and alcohols from vegetable
sources,
2. The development of better methods to process tar sand, coal
gasification and synthesis of fuels by Fischer–Tropsch (FT)
technology
3. The initiation of long-term plans to look for renewable
energy sources.
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/
 Crude oil Benchmarks
• Oil benchmarks describe where the commodity originates, which
determines its use and allows investors to track the price of a specific
oil type.
1. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a light, sweet crude oil that
serves as one of the main global oil benchmarks.
2. Brent Crude is the benchmark used for the light oil market in
Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, originating from oil fields in
the North Sea between the Shetland Islands and Norway.
3. The OPEC Reference Basket (ORB), also referred to as the OPEC
Basket is a weighted average of prices for petroleum blends
produced by OPEC countries.
 Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC)
• The term Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
refers to a group of 13 of the world’s major oil-exporting nations.
• OPEC was founded in 1960 to coordinate the petroleum policies of its
members and to provide member states with technical and economic
aid.
• Countries that belong to OPEC include Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
and Venezuela (the five founders), plus Algeria, Angola, Congo,
Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, and the United Arab
Emirates
 Introduction
Stricter environmental regulations have raised the cost of producing
clean fuels.
This motivated the search for producing clean fuels by non-conventional
methods, such as by
a. Ambient desulphurization by liquid oxidants
b. Olefin alkylation
c. Fischer–Tropsch are other possible methods for producing clean
fuels.
New technology and better design of refinery equipment are also being
developed in order to produce clean and less expensive fuels.
Introduction
• Light straight Run:
A complex combination of hydrocarbons produced by distillation of crude oil. It
consists predominantly of aliphatic hydrocarbons having carbon numbers
predominantly in the range of C4 through C10.

• Heavy Straight Run:

• Heavy naphtha is a distillation cut (the output streams from a distillation
tower) primarily made up of material roughly the same density as
finished gasoline. Heavy naphtha molecules typically have from 7-9 carbon
atoms.
• Most of the heavy naphtha in a refinery comes directly from the atmospheric
distillation unit. , hydrocracker (as heavy hydro-crackate), from the coker (as
coker naphtha).
• The heavy naphtha distillation cut is typically sent to the reformer to upgrade its
quality to make it suitable as a gasoline blendstock.
• Most of the naphtha sent to the reformer must first be hydrotreated to remove
impurities that are harmful to the reformer catalyst. The exception is naphtha
from a hydrocracker, which is essentially already hydroteated.
 Refining Processes
• In the modern refinery, the refining processes are classified as either physical separation or chemical conversion
ones.
1. Physical Separation Processes 2. Chemical Catalytic Conversion Processes
a.Crude Distillation a. Catalytic Reforming
b.Solvent De-asphalting b. Hydrotreating
c.Solvent Extraction c. Catalytic Hydrocracking
d.Solvent Dewaxing d. Catalytic Cracking
f. Alkylation
3. Thermal Chemical Conversion Processes g. Isomerization
a. Delayed Coking
b. Flexicoking
c. Visbreaking
 1. Physical Separation Processes
1.1 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.
 1. Physical Separation Processes
1.2 Solvent De-asphalting

• 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 (nonpolar and nonvolatile components of crude oil) 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.
 1. Physical Separation Processes
1.3 Solvent Extraction:
• In this process, lube oil stock is treated by a solvent, such as
N-methyl 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.
 1. Physical Separation Processes
Solvent Dewaxing
• The raffinate is dissolved in a solvent (methyl ethyl ketone, MEK) and
the solution is gradually chilled, during which high molecular weight
paraffin (wax) is crystallized, and the remaining solution is filtered.
• The extracted and dewaxed resulting oil is called ‘‘lube oil’’.
• In some modern refineries removal of aromatics and waxes is carried
out by catalytic processes in the‘‘all hydrogenation process’’.
 2. Chemical Separation Processes
2.1 Catalytic Reforming
• In this process a special catalyst (platinum metal supported on silica or
silica base alumina) is used to restructure naphtha fraction (C6–C10)
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 (benzene–toluene–xylene, BTX).
 2. Chemical Separation Processes
2.2 Hydrotreating:
• This is one of the major processes for the cleaning of petroleum
fractions from impurities such as sulphur, nitrogen, oxy-compounds,
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.
 2. Chemical Separation Processes
2.3 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.
 2. Chemical Separation Processes
2.3 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.
 2. Chemical Separation Processes
Alkylation
• Alkylation is the process in which isobutane reacts with
olefins such as butylene 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.
 2. Chemical Separation Processes
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.
3. Thermal Chemical Conversion Processes
• These processes are considered as upgrading processes for
vacuum residue.
a. Delayed Coking
b. Flexicoking
c. Visbreaking
3. Thermal Chemical Conversion Processes
3.1. 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
a.sponge
b.Shot
c.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.
3. Thermal Chemical Conversion Processes
Flexi-coking:
• 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.
3. Thermal Chemical Conversion Processes
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.
 Assignment
1. Refinery Gases
2. Liquid Petroleum Gases
3. Light Straight Run
4. Heavy Straight Run
5. Kerosene
6. Light Gas Oil
7. Heavy Gas Oil
8. Vacuum Gas Oil
9. Vacuum Residue
10. Deasphalted oil (DAO)
11. Sponge coke
12. Shot coke
13. Needle coke
14. Atmospheric residues (AR)
15. Vacuum gas oils (VGOs)
Thank you