Overview of the Refinery Operations

Crude and Processes

What is Crude Oil ?
What are the types of Crude ?
What are its stages/products ?
Process in Oil Refinery
Block Diagram of major process
Atmospheric/Distillation
Visbreaking
Catalytic Cracking
Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC)
Hydrotreating / Hydrocracking
Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU)
 What is Crude Oil ?

•Obtained from Earth’s Crust

•Millions of years of decaying process has resulted into crude oil
•It is extracted from ground/ocean and send to refinery through
pipes or ships
•It is a mixture of Hydrocarbons, Water and Salts.
•Desalting is the first step in the refinery process where water
and salts are removed
Desalting
 Classification of Crude Oil

• Normal paraffins (low boiling point range)

• Iso-paraffins (branched chain paraffins, high anti knock properties)
• Olefins (atleast one double bond, present in very small amount)
• Cycloparaffins (can be converted into aromatics by dehdrogenation)
• Mononuclear aromatics (includes benzene, toluene & xylene)
• Polynuclear aromatics (PNA – two or more aromatic rings)
• Resins (composed of PNA surrounded by paraffins & aromatic rings)
• Asphaltenes (high molecular weight complex compound)
• Heteroatom compounds (apart from HC, it also include S, N & O)
Stages in Crude oil processing/products
 Boiling
Distillate Fraction C – Atoms/Molecule
Point OC

Gases < 30 1-4

Gasoline 30 - 210 5 - 12
Naphtha 100 - 200 8 - 12

Kerosene 150 - 250 11 - 13

Diesel, Fuel Oil 160 - 400 13 - 17

Atmospheric Gasoil 220 - 345 17 – 20

Heavy Fuel Oil 315 - 540 20 - 45

Atmospheric Residue > 540 > 30

Vacuum Residue > 615 > 60

Atmospheric Distillation
Visbreaking
Catalytic Reformer
Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC)
Hydrotreater
 Hydrotreating process
Hydrofining is Hydrotreating process given by UOP.

WHY HYDROTREATING?
1. Meet product specifications (e.g. sulfur, aromatics, benzene, viscosity, stability, di-
olefins etc.) & reduce acid rain.
2. Improve performance of downstream catalytic units (FCCU, reformer, isomerization
etc.)
3. Remove catalyst poisons and scale that can foul processing equipments (sulfur,
nitrogen, metals, silica etc.)

HOW?
1. Hydrotreating is accomplished by adding hydrogen under pressure.
2. The addition of hydrogen removes sulfur as hydrogen sulfide and removes metals by
deposition on the hydrotreating catalysts.
3. Hydrogen also breaks aromatic bonds to lower the average molecular weight and
produce higher yields of fuel products.
Hydrotreating process
 Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU)
•Claus process is the most significant desulfurizing process
•Thermal and catalytic is the two process step in this technology
•60% sulfur is obtained from thermal stage
•Tail gases contains combustible material and H2S which is
burned in incinerator
•Vast majority of sulfur produced worldwide is byproduct sulfur
from refinery
 Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU)
Sulfur Sulfur
Condenser Sulfur
Condenser Steam Reheater Reheater Condenser
Feed Reaction Tail
Gas
furnace Gas

BFW

Air
Catalytic Catalytic
Sulfur Converter
Sulfur Converter
Sulfur

Spent Spent
Catalyst Catalyst

Sulfur