Crude Oil Distillation: L04 - 1 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

Lecture 4
Crude Oil Distillation
L04 - 1 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

We have already seen (Lecture 2) that crude oil can be
separated into fractions by distillation:
naphtha diesel gas oil vol % distilled

kerosene

Single Stage Separation
vapour is richer in the more

volatile component
liquid is richer in the less

volatile component
Single phase The mixture is partially vaporised (or partially condensed).

solution of two or The compositions of the two phases are different.
more components If the phases are separated, some separation of the
components will be achieved.
• It is often assumed that the two phases formed will be in
equilibrium.
< mass transfer limitations may result in equilibrium not being reached.
• All components can appear in both phases.
< involatile components cannot be distilled.
< non-condensible, non-soluble components cannot be distilled.

Separation in a single equilibrium stage
Liquid feed Vapour product
Liquid product Vapour feed
• Streams are assumed to be in equilibrium.

< Temperature and composition are unique, once system pressure and
flow rates and composition of vapour and liquid feeds are specified.
< The amount of separation that can be achieved is limited.

Cascade of Separation Stages
• A single separation stage can only achieve a limited degree
of separation.
• Countercurrent configuration:
Vapour product
Liquid feed
Liquid product
Vapour feed
< streams leaving each stage are in equilibrium.
< more volatile components are transferred to the vapour phase.
< less volatile components are transferred to the liquid phase.
< a greater degree of separation can be achieved.

Refluxing and reboiling
Product Condenser
1
Counter-current cascade of equilibrium vapour-liquid
2 separation stages:
• Liquid stream ‘feeding’ the cascade is produced by
condensing and returning some of the vapour leaving the top
m stage.
• Vapour stream ‘feeding’ the cascade is produced by
Feed j vaporising and returning some of the liquid leaving the
bottom stage.
k
• The feed to the process is introduced at an intermediate
stage.
• Products are removed from the condenser and vaporiser
n-1
(reboiler).
n
Product Reboiler
This is the configuration used in a conventional distillation column.

The distillation column
Condenser
Cooling water
• Staged columns.
< Perforated trays allow vapour to bubble through a
Overhead
layer of liquid.
product • Vapour leaving a stage then bubbles through the liquid phase
Liquid
(distillate) Reflux in
on the stage above.
downcomer • Many different tray designs are available.
Vapour < Liquid flows across the stage and onto the stage
below under gravity.
Feed • The downcomer allows downward flow; weirs restrict flow to the
Tray downcomer.
Vapour • Packed columns.
Reboiler
< Packing, rather than trays, is used to facilitate
Liquid
contact between the vapour and liquid phases.
< Many different types of packing have been
Steam
developed.
Bottom Liquid Product

Distillation Equipment
(i) Trays
L
Active Area
V V
L
Conventional Tray High Capacity Tray
• Many different designs.
• High capacity trays utilise the downcomer area.
• Valves used as well as plain holes (sieve trays) in some designs.

(ii) Packing L L
V V
Random or Dumped Structured
Packing Packing
• Many types of both random and structured packing available.

To make a number of products we need a sequence of columns
A A A
B
C B
D
E B
C
D C
A
B
C D
D
E E
E
Direct Sequence A Indirect Sequence
A
B B
C C
D
E ... and so on
D
E
Mixed Direct/Indirect Sequence
C Each column makes a cut between two products

• The crude oil contains of the order 108 components, so it is

does not make sense to separate them individually
• The products may also contain a range of components, as

long as the specifications are satisfied
• Instead of making sharp separations we wish to distill the

crude oil into suitable fractions

For crude oil distillation
Light Ends
Light Naphtha
SR Heavy Naphtha
SR Kerosene
SR Diesel
Crude Oil
Atmospheric Gas Oil
Residue
The so-called indirect sequence

(Note condensers are partial condensers)
Now eliminate the partial condensers (introduce thermal coupling)
Light Ends
Light Naphtha
SR Heavy Naphtha
SR Kerosene
SR Diesel
Crude Oil
Atmospheric Gas Oil
Residue

Now rearrange the column sections into the Light Ends
equivalent sequence of side strippers 10

Light Naphtha
9
Light Ends Main 8
Column
Light Naphtha
10 SR Heavy
Naphtha
9
8
SR Heavy Naphtha 7
7 6
6 SR Kerosene
SR Kerosene
3
5
SR Diesel Y 4
5
Side
Strippers
Crude Oil 2
Atmospheric Gas Oil SR Diesel
Residue
2 3
Crude
Oil Atmospheric
Gas Oil
1
Residue
Thermally coupled indirect sequence Side-stripper arrangement

BUT, there are 3 problems associated with this arrangement
Light Ends
Light Naphtha
10
1) Some of the reboilers will require

Main 8
9 very high temperature heat
Column
SR Heavy
sources.
Naphtha
2) High temperature reboilers will foul

6
7
excessively due to thermal
SR Kerosene decomposition of hydrocarbon
(maximum reboiler temperature
5
Side
Strippers -330OC)
4
SR Diesel
3) The vapour flow in the main
column increases significantly as
2 3 we move up the column, due to
Crude
Oil Atmospheric
Gas Oil
vaporisation of light material
1
Residue
Side-stripper arrangement
Substitute some (or all) of the reboiling with direct steam injection
and introduce intermediate condensation
Light Ends
Water
Light Naphtha
SR Heavy
Naphtha
SR Kerosene
Steam
SR Diesel
Crude Steam
Oil
Atmospheric
Gas Oil
Steam
Residue

Role of Stripping Steam
C Stripping steam provides energy for the distillation.
C Steam makes the hydrocarbons more volatile (by reducing the

pressure of the hydrocarbon).

Temperature-enthalpy effects of the choice of vaporisation
mechanism
Steam
Reboiler
Reboiler Steam
MORE LIVE STEAM
LESS REBOILING
Reboiler
Reboiler
Reboiler
Steam Steam Steam
(a) (b) (c) (d)

Enthalpy

A crude oil distillation column is equivalent to a sequence of simple columns
Light Ends
Water
Light Naphtha
Light Ends
Water
]
SR Heavy
Light Naphtha
Naphtha
SR Heavy
Naphtha
SR Kerosene SR Kerosene
Steam
SR Diesel
Steam
Steam Crude Atmospheric
Oil Gas Oil
SR Diesel
Steam
Residue
Crude Steam
Oil
Atmospheric
Gas Oil
Steam
Residue

Intermediate Condensation
• Liquid is withdrawn, cooled and returned to the

column.
< Easier to remove and cool liquid than vapour.
• This provides reflux in the column.
• The coolers are a heat source in the process.

Liquid cooling
• The amount of intermediate cooling determines Vapour flow

the extent of thermal coupling between column
sections.
• There is heat transfer only for a few stages below

the liquid return, so very little separation takes
place.
Intermediate Condensation
Pump-around vs. pump-back streams
Pump-around Pump-back
• Both arrangements cool liquid and return it to the column.
• Pump-back streams can cool at most 100% of the liquid

flowing down the column.
• Pump-around streams recycle liquid, so are not similarly

limited.
< Large liquid flow rates in the pump-around zone can result.
< Some separation and remixing takes place.

Varying the pumparound duty another degree of
freedom
2 2 2
1 1 1
Reboiler
Reboiler
1 1 1
2 2 2
Condenser
Condenser
ENTHALPY ENTHALPY ENTHALPY
No thermal coupling Fully thermally Partial thermal

coupled coupling
The crude oil must be preheated to around 400OC (750OF) before being
fed to the column
C Cooling of product streams and
Light Ends pumparounds used to pre-heat
feed to column.
Water
Light Naphtha
C Heat recovery increases
temperature up to around 280 OC
(536OF) with no vaporisation.
SR Heavy
Naphtha C Furnace raises temperature to
around 400OC (750OF).
C Cracking in furnace reduced by

SR Kerosene
short residence time.
C At column pressure furnace

Steam
vaporises material to be taken
SR Diesel as products above the feed plus
an “overflash”.
Furnace
(Pipestill)
Crude
Steam
C Overflash usually 2 to 3% of
Oil Atmospheric volume crude, or 3 to 5% of
Heat Steam Gas Oil
Recovery volume of vapour from the
Residue
flash zone.
Heat Integration
Heat Sources Heat Sinks

• Products • Crude oil
• Pump-arounds • Reboilers
Increasing
Cost
• Steam
• Furnace heating
A good design uses heat integration techniques to minimise the

furnace duty, subject to operability constraints

Heat Recovery
• Energy intensive process

< typically consumes 1- 2 % of energy value of fuel processed
• Heat added and removed over wide temperature range
• Heat recovery reduces energy costs of process
• Interactions between column and heat exchanger network

Crude Oil Desalting
C Crude oil usually desalted to remove salts, metals in inorganic compounds
and suspended solids.
C Salt and solids removal minimises fouling and corrosion.
C Metals removal reduces catalyst deactivation in downstream processes.
C Crude oil mixed with 3 to 10% (typically 5%) volume of water and then
separated using electrical fields to assist coalescence.
C Crude oil must be preheated to 90 to 150OC (200 to 300OF) prior to desalting.
C Generally, the heavier the crude, the higher the desalter temperature.
Desalted Desalted
Crude Oil Crude Oil
Crude Crude
Oil Oil
Water to Water to
Water Effluent Effluent

Water
Single Stage Desalting Two Stage Desalting
C Single stage desalters remove 90 to 95% of salt and two stage 99%+.
C Suspended solids removal usually greater than 60%.

The Atmospheric Crude Unit
Light Ends
Water
Light Naphtha
SR Heavy
Naphtha
SR Kerosene
Steam
SR Diesel
Furnace
(Pipestill)
Desalter Steam
Crude
Oil Atmospheric
Heat Heat Steam Gas Oil
Recovery Recovery
Residue
(Atmospheric Residue,
Long Residue)

Crude oil distillation column design
• Design techniques published in 1940's to 1960's, but little has been
published in the open literature recently.
< Recent publication: Jones, DSJ, 1995, Elements of Petroleum Processing, John
Wiley and Sons, Chichester.
• Early design methods used correlations to relate product flows and
specifications to:
• stripping steam flows
• number of stages in each section of the tower and in side strippers
< Stage temperatures, intermediate reflux ratios and column diameter can then be
determined.
• More recent design methods are also based on these empirical
correlations and rules of thumb.
< Pseudo-components allow stage-to-stage calculations to be carried out.
• Typically, the column will contain 5-8 stages per product plus 5-8 stages
above and below the feed point; side strippers will contain 4-10 stages
each.
• Traditionally, the column is designed prior to heat recovery being
considered.
Cut Points for Distillation Products
600
500
400
HGO
Temp (OC)
300 LGO
Cut Points
KEROSENE
200
HEAVY NAPHTHA
100
LIGHT NAPHTHA
LIGHT ENDS
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
% Volume Distilled

Distillation Curves for the Products
Temp (OC) 300
KEROSENE
End Point (EP)
200
HEAVY NAPHTHA
100
Initial Boiling LIGHT NAPHTHA

Point (IBP)
0 20 40 60 80 100
% Volume Distilled
C Distillation curves overlap

Cut points from the product distillation curves
• Product quality:
< maximum and minimum END POINT HEAVY
(100%) PRODUCT
temperatures,
T100L
< temperatures when 5% and
T95L
95% are vaporised 5-95 GAP
T5H-T95L
T5H
• Sharpness of separation T0H
< overlap in boiling point range LIGHT INITIAL POINT
PRODUCT (0%)
between adjacent products Volume percent
indicate sharpness of CUT POINT VOLUME whole crude
vapourised
separation.

Setting Cut Points
C Setting cut points is an important degree of freedom.
C For example, suppose cut point between heavy naphtha and

kerosene is changed from 200OC to 205OC
- fraction between 200 and 205OC now comes out with the
naphtha rather than the kerosene
- volume of naphtha increases
- volume of kerosene decreases
- naphtha gets heavier (cut moving to naphtha heavier than the
average naphtha gravity)
- cut moving into naphtha lighter than the average kerosene
gravity, making the kerosene heavier also

Vacuum Distillation
C At temperatures around 380OC the crude oil starts to crack (large

molecules break down into smaller molecules).
C Cracking is desirable - but only when controlled!
C Further seperation of the residue from the atmospheric column

must be carried out under vacuum conditions to reduce the
temperature of vapourisation.

Vacuum Distillation
Steam Ejectors Noncondensible
cw cw cw Gas
High Vacuum
5mm Hg
cw Water
Light Vacuum
Gas Oil
Heavy Vacuum
Gas Oil
Steam
Vacuum Residue
Steam (Short Residue, Asphalt)
390o to 450o
Light Ends
Water
Light Naphtha
SR Heavy
Naphtha Steam Ejectors Noncondensible
Gas
cw cw cw
SR Kerosene
High Vacuum
Steam 5mm Hg Water
cw
Furnace SR Diesel
(Pipestill) Light Vacuum
Steam Gas Oil
Crude Desalter Atmospheric
Oil Gas oil Heavy Vacuum
Gas Oil
Steam
Heat Heat
Recovery Recovery
Steam
Vacuum Residue
(Short Residue, Asphalt)
Steam 390o to 450o
Basic arrangement largely unchanged since the 1920's

• New design tools allow other options to be examined, for example
Hydrotreater Feed
Petro. Naphtha
2 bar 1 bar 1 bar Kerosene

Crude Oil 125OC 131OC 154OC
Light Gas Oil
1,225 375OC Heavy Gas Oil
tons/hr Dry Wet Wet
Russian Light Vac. Gas Oil
Export 53
Blend 416 CO mmHg Med. Vac. Gas Oil
Heavy Vac. Gas Oil
Heater Heater
Vacuum Residue
Progressive Distillation Process licensed by Elf/Technip

Progressive Distillation Process
• First-ever application at Mider Refinery, Leuna, Germany, started up in

August 1997.
• Successive preflashes in three towers.
• Energy consumption is about 1.35% of its feed in fuel-oil-equivalents, while

in traditional distillation unit around 1- 2% of feed is required.
• A lot of low-pressure steam is used in for this scheme, which is attractive if

the refinery has a surplus.
Reference: Rhodes, A. K., ‘Environmentally advanced refinery nears start-up

in Germany’, Oil & Gas Journal, Mar. 17, 1997
Utility Consumption
• Typical utility consumptions per barrel of feed in the

atmospheric and vacuum crude fractionators are
Atmos Vacuum
Unit Unit
Fuel (MJ) 50 ÷ 100 30 ÷ 100
Steam (kg) 4.5 ÷ 14 4.5 ÷ 23
Power (kWh) 0.5 ÷ 0.9 0.3 ÷ 0.4
Cooling water (m3) 0.6 0.6

Capital Cost
• The capital cost will depend on the flowsheet, location,
contractor, etc.
• A correlation chart is provided in Gary and Handwerk

“Petroleum Refining : Technology and Economics”, (Marcel
Dekker, 1994). By fitting this curve and updating, the cost of
a plant on the US Gulf Coast is given by
Cost (million $, Jan 1998) = 4.9 (size(kbd))0.56
for an atmospheric unit and
= 2.9 (size(kbd))0.63
for a vacuum unit
• 800 to 1180 $/bpd based on the size of 100 kbpd to 50
kbpd, quoted by Foster Wheeler for 2Q, 2004 US Gulf
Coast.
Summary
• The feed and products of crude oil distillation processes are

characterised by distillation curves.
• Distillation is carried out in two stages

– first slightly above atmospheric pressure
– second under high vacuum
• Crude oil distillation energy intensive

– heat recovery reduces operating costs
• Alternative distillation configurations are possible but have

largely not been applied.

Crude Oil Distillation: L04 - 1 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

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Lecture 4

Crude Oil Distillation

L04 - 1 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

naphtha diesel gas oil vol % distilled

L04 - 2 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

vapour is richer in the more

liquid is richer in the less

Single phase The mixture is partially vaporised (or partially condensed).

L04 - 3 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

Liquid product Vapour feed

• Streams are assumed to be in equilibrium.

L04 - 4 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

L04 - 5 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

This is the configuration used in a conventional distillation column.

L04 - 7 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

L04 - 8 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

• Many types of both random and structured packing available.

L04 - 9 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

Direct Sequence A Indirect Sequence

C Each column makes a cut between two products

• The crude oil contains of the order 108 components, so it is

• The products may also contain a range of components, as

• Instead of making sharp separations we wish to distill the

L04 - 11 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

The so-called indirect sequence

L04 - 13 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

equivalent sequence of side strippers 10

Thermally coupled indirect sequence Side-stripper arrangement

1) Some of the reboilers will require

2) High temperature reboilers will foul

L04 - 16 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

C Stripping steam provides energy for the distillation.

C Steam makes the hydrocarbons more volatile (by reducing the

L04 - 17 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

MORE LIVE STEAM

(a) (b) (c) (d)

L04 - 18 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

L04 - 19 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

• Liquid is withdrawn, cooled and returned to the

• This provides reflux in the column.

• The coolers are a heat source in the process.

• The amount of intermediate cooling determines Vapour flow

• There is heat transfer only for a few stages below

• Both arrangements cool liquid and return it to the column.

• Pump-back streams can cool at most 100% of the liquid

• Pump-around streams recycle liquid, so are not similarly

L04 - 21 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

ENTHALPY ENTHALPY ENTHALPY

No thermal coupling Fully thermally Partial thermal

C Cracking in furnace reduced by

C At column pressure furnace

Heat Sources Heat Sinks

A good design uses heat integration techniques to minimise the

L04 - 24 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

• Energy intensive process

• Heat added and removed over wide temperature range

• Heat recovery reduces energy costs of process

• Interactions between column and heat exchanger network

L04 - 25 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)

Water Effluent Effluent

Single Stage Desalting Two Stage Desalting

L04 - 26 Petroleum Engineering (v1.0)