Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) is described as the mother of the refinery.

This is because it is the

first unit the Crude Oil enters from the tank.Also all the other downstream units depend on it for
its feedstock.Without it no unit can operate or produce anything.

Crude oil takes a long journey before it find itself in to the column for separation.It is an energy
intensive unit and the crude oil requires a lot of heat before it enters the column.It first receive its
heat requirements from the Preheat trains and this account for about 55% of the total heat
requirements while the reamaining 45% comes from the Crude Heater or furnace.

Crude oil from the Crude Oil pump first pass through an Overhead vapour exchangers which are
mostly vertical,exchange heat with the pumparound exchangers,then to desalters,another series
of Heat Exchangers,PreFlash Column,another series of Heat Exchangers and finally find its way
to the Fired Heaters.

The fired heater is the last place before entering to the column.Fired heaters comes in Box and
Cylidrical shapes;It is divided into Radiation zone and Convection zone.The radiation zone is
fitted with coil tubes made of Stainless steel mostly 317 and can either be vertical or horizontal.It
has burners which can either be in the bottom,side or top.A combustion is done in the radiation
zone by mixing air and oil in certain proportions.Flue gas is generated and the crude oil inside
the coil tubes will get heated in turn.The crude oil will not make any contact with the generated
flue gas rather heat is transferred to it from the tubes by radiation.

The Crude oil first enters the convection zone at the top before it find its way to the radiation
zone.One of the most important parameter in running the column is called coil outlet temperature
(COT).It is critical in determining how the column will run and operate.

Having been the supervisor that oversee the installation of the largest 3 crude Heaters in the
world i find it important to obtain acertification for that.That was why i decided to get it from our
licensor UOP.Thank you for granting me this opprtunity UOP.