Processing Units of Oil Refinery

 Crude Oil Distillation Unit. Crude Oil Distillation Unit (CDU): is the first processing
unit in virtually all oil refineries. ...
 Vacuum Distillation Unit. ...
 Diesel Hydrotreating Unit. ...
 Semi-regenerative Reforming. ...
 Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit. ...
 Sulfur Recovery Unit. ...
 Isomerization Unit.

Common process units found in a

refinery
 Desalter unit washes out salt from the crude oil before it enters the atmospheric
distillation unit.
 Atmospheric distillation unit distills crude oil into fractions. See Continuous
distillation.
 Vacuum distillation unit further distills residual bottoms after atmospheric
distillation.
 Naphtha hydrotreater unit uses hydrogen to desulfurize naphtha from
atmospheric distillation. Must hydrotreat the naphtha before sending to a Catalytic
Reformer unit.
 Catalytic reformer unit is used to convert the naphtha-boiling range molecules into
higher octane reformate (reformer product). The reformate has higher content of
aromatics and cyclic hydrocarbons). An important byproduct of a reformer is
hydrogen released during the catalyst reaction. The hydrogen is used either in the
hydrotreaters or the hydrocracker.
 Distillate hydrotreater unit desulfurizes distillates (such as diesel) after
atmospheric distillation.
 Fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) unit upgrades heavier fractions into lighter, more
valuable products.
 Hydrocracker unit uses hydrogen to upgrade heavier fractions into lighter, more
valuable products.
 Visbreaking unit upgrades heavy residual oils by thermally cracking them into
lighter, more valuable reduced viscosity products.
 Merox unit treats LPG, kerosene or jet fuel by oxidizing mercaptans to organic
disulfides.
 Alternative processes for removing mercaptans are known, e.g. doctor
sweetening process and caustic washing.
 Coking units (delayed coking, fluid coker, and flexicoker) process very heavy
residual oils into gasoline and diesel fuel, leaving petroleum coke as a residual
product.
  Alkylation unit produces high-octane component for gasoline blending.
 Dimerization unit converts olefins into higher-octane gasoline blending
components. For example, butenes can be dimerized into isooctene which may
subsequently be hydrogenated to form isooctane. There are also other uses for
dimerization.
 Isomerization unit converts linear molecules to higher-octane branched molecules
for blending into gasoline or feed to alkylation units.
 Steam reforming unit produces hydrogen for the hydrotreaters or hydrocracker.
 Liquified gas storage units store propane and similar gaseous fuels at pressure
sufficient to maintain them in liquid form. These are usually spherical vessels or
bullets (horizontal vessels with rounded ends.
 Storage tanks store crude oil and finished products, usually cylindrical, with some
sort of vapor emission control and surrounded by an earthen berm to contain
spills.
 Slug catcher used when product (crude oil and gas) that comes from a pipeline
with two-phase flow, has to be buffered at the entry of the units.
 Amine gas treater, Claus unit, and tail gas treatment convert hydrogen sulfide
from hydrodesulfurization into elemental sulfur.
 Utility units such as cooling towers circulate cooling water, boiler plants generates
steam, and instrument air systems include pneumatically operated control valves
and an electrical substation.
 Wastewater collection and treating systems consist of API separators, dissolved
air flotation (DAF) units and further treatment units such as an activated sludge
biotreater to make water suitable for reuse or for disposal.
 Solvent refining units use solvent such as cresol or furfural to remove unwanted,
mainly aromatics from lubricating oil stock or diesel stock.
 Solvent dewaxing units remove the heavy waxy constituents petrolatum from
vacuum distillation products.

Flow diagram of typical refinery

The image below is a schematic flow diagram of a typical oil refinery that depicts the various
unit processes and the flow of intermediate product streams that occurs between the inlet
crude oil feedstock and the final end products. The diagram depicts only one of the literally
hundreds of different oil refinery configurations. The diagram also does not include any of
the usual refinery facilities providing utilities such as steam, cooling water, and electric
power as well as storage tanks for crude oil feedstock and for intermediate products and
end products.
 Schematic flow diagram of a typical oil refinery
There are many process configurations other than that depicted above. For example, the
vacuum distillation unit may also produce fractions that can be refined into endproducts
such as: spindle oil used in the textile industry, light machinery oil, motor oil, and steam
cylinder oil. As another example, the vacuum residue may be processed in a coker unit to
produce petroleum coke.

The crude oil distillation unit

The crude oil distillation unit (CDU) is the first processing unit in virtually all petroleum
refineries. The CDU distills the incoming crude oil into various fractions of different
boiling ranges, each of which are then processed further in the other refinery
processing units. The CDU is often referred to as the atmospheric distillation unit
because it operates at slightly above atmospheric pressure.
Below is a schematic flow diagram of a typical crude oil distillation unit. The incoming
crude oil is preheated by exchanging heat with some of the hot, distilled fractions and
other streams. It is then desalted to remove inorganic salts (primarily sodium chloride).
Following the desalter, the crude oil is further heated by exchanging heat with some of
the hot, distilled fractions and other streams. It is then heated in a fuel-fired furnace
(fired heater) to a temperature of about 398 °C and routed into the bottom of the
distillation unit.

The cooling and condensing of the distillation tower overhead is provided partially by
exchanging heat with the incoming crude oil and partially by either an air-cooled or
water-cooled condenser. Additional heat is removed from the distillation column by a
pumparound system as shown in the diagram below.
As shown in the flow diagram, the overhead distillate fraction from the distillation
column is naphtha. The fractions removed from the side of the distillation column at
various points between the column top and bottom are called sidecuts. Each of the
sidecuts (i.e., the kerosene, light gas oil and heavy gas oil) is cooled by exchanging heat
with the incoming crude oil. All of the fractions (i.e., the overhead naphtha, the sidecuts
and the bottom residue) are sent to intermediate storage tanks before being processed
further.

Schematic flow diagram of a typical crude oil distillation unit as used in

petroleum crude oil refineries.

Specialty end products

These will blend various feedstocks, mix appropriate additives, provide short term
storage, and prepare for bulk loading to trucks, barges, product ships, and railcars.

 Gaseous fuels such as propane, stored and shipped in liquid form under
pressure in specialized railcars to distributors.
 Liquid fuels blending (producing automotive and aviation grades of gasoline,
kerosene, various aviation turbine fuels, and diesel fuels, adding dyes,
detergents, antiknock additives, oxygenates, and anti-fungal compounds as
required). Shipped by barge, rail, and tanker ship. May be shipped regionally
in dedicated pipelines to point consumers, particularly aviation jet fuel to
major airports, or piped to distributors in multi-product pipelines using
product separators called pipeline inspection gauges (“pigs”).
 Lubricants (produces light machine oils, motor oils, and greases, adding
viscosity stabilizers as required), usually shipped in bulk to an offsite
packaging plant.
 Wax (paraffin), used in the packaging of frozen foods, among others. May be
shipped in bulk to a site to prepare as packaged blocks.
  Sulfur (or sulfuric acid), byproducts of sulfur removal from petroleum which
may have up to a couple percent sulfur as organic sulfur-containing
compounds. Sulfur and sulfuric acid are useful industrial materials. Sulfuric
acid is usually prepared and shipped as the acid precursor oleum.
 Bulk tar shipping for offsite unit packaging for use in tar-and-gravel roofing.
 Asphalt unit. Prepares bulk asphalt for shipment.
 Petroleum coke, used in specialty carbon products or as solid fuel.
 Petrochemicals or petrochemical feedstocks, which are often sent to
petrochemical plants for further processing in a variety of ways. The
petrochemicals may be olefins or their precursors, or various types of
aromatic petrochemicals.

Siting/locating of petroleum
refineries
A party searching for a site to construct a refinery or a chemical plant needs to consider
the following issues:

 The site has to be reasonably far from residential areas.

 Infrastructure should be available for supply of raw materials and shipment
of products to markets.
 Energy to operate the plant should be available.
 Facilities should be available for waste disposal.
Refineries which use a large amount of steam and cooling water need to have an
abundant source of water. Oil refineries therefore are often located nearby navigable
rivers or on a sea shore, nearby a port. Such location also gives access to
transportation by river or by sea. The advantages of transporting crude oil by pipeline
are evident, and oil companies often transport a large volume of fuel to distribution
terminals by pipeline. Pipeline may not be practical for products with small output, and
rail cars, road tankers, and barges are used.

Petrochemical plants and solvent manufacturing (fine fractionating) plants need spaces
for further processing of a large volume of refinery products for further processing, or
to mix chemical additives with a product at source rather than at blending terminals.
Safety and environmental
concerns
The refining process releases a number of different chemicals into the atmosphere and
a notable odor normally accompanies the presence of a refinery. Aside from air
pollution impacts there are also wastewater concerns, risks of industrial accidents such
as fire and explosion, and noise health effects due to industrial noise.

Many governments worldwide have mandated restrictions on contaminants that

refineries release, and most refineries have installed the equipment needed to comply
with the requirements of the pertinent environmental protection regulatory agencies.
Environmental and safety concerns mean that oil refineries are sometimes located
some distance away from major urban areas. Nevertheless, there are many instances
where refinery operations are close to populated areas and pose health risks.

Corrosion problems and

prevention
Petroleum refineries run as efficiently as possible to reduce costs. One major factor
that decreases efficiency is corrosion of the metal components found throughout the
process line of the hydrocarbon refining process. Corrosion causes the failure of parts
in addition to dictating the cleaning schedule of the refinery, during which the entire
production facility must be shut down and cleaned. The cost of corrosion in the
petroleum industry has been estimated at US$3.7 billion.

Corrosion occurs in various forms in the refining process, such as pitting corrosion
from water droplets, embrittlement from hydrogen, and stress corrosion cracking from
sulfide attack.From a materials standpoint, carbon steel is used for upwards of 80% of
refinery components, which is beneficial due to its low cost. Carbon steel is resistant to
the most common forms of corrosion, particularly from hydrocarbon impurities at
temperatures below 205 °C, but other corrosive chemicals and environments prevent
its use everywhere. Common replacement materials are low alloy steels containing
chromium and molybdenum, with stainless steels containing more chromium dealing
with more corrosive environments. More expensive materials commonly used are
nickel, titanium, and copper alloys. These are primarily saved for the most problematic
areas where extremely high temperatures or very corrosive chemicals are present.
Corrosion is fought by a complex system of monitoring, preventative repairs and
careful use of materials. Monitoring methods include both off-line checks taken during
maintenance and on-line monitoring. Off-line checks measure corrosion after it has
occurred, telling the engineer when equipment must be replaced based on the
historical information he has collected. This is referred to as preventative management.
On-line systems are a more modern development, and are revolutionizing the way
corrosion is approached. There are several types of on-line corrosion monitoring
technologies such as linear polarization resistance, electrochemical noise and electrical
resistance. On-Line monitoring has generally had slow reporting rates in the past
(minutes or hours) and been limited by process conditions and sources of error but
newer technologies can report rates up to twice per minute with much higher accuracy
(referred to as real-time monitoring). This allows process engineers to treat corrosion
as another process variable that can be optimized in the system. Immediate responses
to process changes allow the control of corrosion mechanisms, so they can be
minimized while also maximizing production output. In an ideal situation having on-line
corrosion information that is accurate and real-time will allow conditions that cause
high corrosion rates to be identified and reduced. This is known as predictive
management.

Materials methods include selecting the proper material for the application. In areas of
minimal corrosion, cheap materials are preferable, but when bad corrosion can occur,
more expensive but longer lasting materials should be used. Other materials methods
come in the form of protective barriers between corrosive substances and the
equipment metals. These can be either a lining of refractory material such as standard
Portland cement or other special acid-resistant cements that are shot onto the inner
surface of the vessel. Also available are thin overlays of more expensive metals that
protect cheaper metal against corrosion without requiring lots of material.

Chemical Plants
PTT Chemical plant
A chemical plant is an industrial process plant that manufactures (or otherwise
processes) chemicals, usually on a large scale. The general objective of a chemical plant
is to create new material wealth via the chemical or biological transformation and or
separation of materials. Chemical plants use special equipment, units, and technology
in the processes. Other kinds of plants, such as polymer, pharmaceutical, food, and
some beverage production facilities, power plants, oil refineries or other refineries,
natural gas processing and biochemical plants, water and wastewater treatment, and
pollution control equipment use many technologies that have similarities to chemical
plant technology such as fluid systems. Some would consider an oil refinery or a
pharmaceutical or polymer manufacturer to be effectively a chemical plant.
Petrochemical plants (plants using petroleum as a raw material) are usually located
adjacent to an oil refinery to minimize transportation costs for the feedstocks
produced by the refinery. Specialty chemical plants are usually much smaller and not
as sensitive to location.