Hydrogen Management in an Oil Refinery

CIORNEI1, G. BUMBAC1, A. TURCU1, I. IVANESCU2 and M. ILIE3

1

University Politehnica of Bucharest, Centre for Technology Transfer in the Process Industries, 1, Polizu Street,Building A, Room A056, Sector 1, RO-011061, Bucharest, Roumania, email: cttip@chim.upb.ro Oil Corporation PETROM S.A., 109, Calea Victoriei, RO-010069 Bucharest, Romania, phone: +40-21-2129891, fax : +40-21-2129875, email : i.ivanescu@petrom.ro Oil Corporation PETROM S.A., ARPECHIM Subsidiary, RO-110181 Pitesti, County Arges, Romania, phone: +40-248-632049, fax: +40-248-216300, email: m.ilie@arpechim.ro

2National 3National

Introduction
Hydrogen plays very important role in oil refining to eliminate by hydrotreating unwanted constituents as sulfur, nitrogen, aromatic compounds from products as requested by new regulations. Also, heavy oil needs to be further processed to obtain light oil products by hydrocracking.

Case study
Make-up Flow Purity Mole/s % Lube1 Lube2 HCU CCHT CNHT DHT KHT NHT Export Import Hydrogen Plant Cat. Reformer 30 20 570 290 120 270 200 140 99,00 99,00 93,53 99,00 86,75 82,75 82,00 83,00 Purge Flow Purity Mole/s % 10 5 130 70 40 80 100 100 87,00 88,00 77 ,00 78,00 63,00 70,00 75,00 81,00 Recycle Debit moli/s 150 100 2000 800 400 250 0 0 Sink Flow Purity Mole/s % 180 120 2570 1090 520 520 200 140 55 89,00 89,83 80,67 83,59 68,48 76,72 Source Flow Purity Mole/s % 160 105 2130 870 440 330 87,00 88,00 77,00 78,00 63,00 70,00 75,00 81,00 590 440 350 93,00 99,00 83,00

82,00 100 83,00 83,00 100

Pinch Analysis-performed by DPI-UMIST REFOPT software

95 90 85 80

HydrogenPinch
Grand composite curve for actual hidrogen consumption Grand composite curve for minimum hidrogen consumption

Hydrogen production is very expensive process . Production of hydrogen is associated with production of pollutanats as by-products. In this context management of hydorgen is a crucial problem in oil refinry optimisation. Adapting to new challenges often presents unprofitable choices: Investing in new processing capacity Importing more expensive crude Loosing yield on valuable products

Purity, %

75 70 65 60 55 50 0.00E+00

Target Savings: 58.6 mole/s

2.00E+03

4.00E+03

6.00E+03

8.00E+03

1.00E+04

1.20E+04

Hydrogen surplus, mole/s

Hydrogen Plant

Sink Sink Sink Sink Sink Sink Fuel Site

Import

HYDROGEN MANAGEMENT
is a lower (capital) cost alternative, a fresh approach based on HydrogenPinch, technology incorporating the economics of hydrogen supply, process yield and optimisation techniques that leads to practical and economically viable solutions that meet the new specifications required for todays refineries

Optimization techniques Using superstructures: GAMSIDE

Source Source Source Source Source

Identify the sources and the sinks; Decompose compressors into sources and sinks;

Impose constrains: Flow Purity Pressure Others Re-assemble compressors

Hydrogen Plant

Import

Catalytic Reformer NHT

Specify the Flow, Purity and Pressure;

C1

C3 Lube1 Lube2

C4 HCU

C5 KHT DHT

Existing hydrogen flowsheet

C2 CCHT CNHT

Export

Results:
Hydrogen Plant

The new hydrogen flowsheet of the oil refinery

Import Catalytic Reformer

Fuel Site

Analysis. Step I Pinch Analysis

HydrogenPinch setting targets

New pipes Removed pipes

NHT C1 C3 C4 C5

Optimizing Techniques

Savings:
C2 Lube1 Lube2 HCU KHT

Analysis. Step II Synthesis of a better hydrogen flowsheet

Objective: Minimize hydrogen consumption from the most expensive source (Import) without installing additional compressors

18 moles of H2/s 873 600 $/year

CCHT DHT Export

CNHT Fuel Site