REFINING

Advances in naphtha
steam cracking
A review of recent technology developments being incorporated in modern, state-
of-the-art naphtha steam crackers. Opportunities for providing incremental
upgrades to improve safety, environmental performance, manufacturing excellence
Tony Pavone
SRI Consulting

F
or grass-roots naphtha steam
crackers, commercially guaranteed
capacities are now 1.2–1.4MM tpy
for both gas (ethane/propane) and liquid
(naphtha/gas oil) steam-cracking units
that incorporate state-of-the-art technol-
ogy. The five major steam-cracking
licensors (Lummus, Linde, Kellogg,
Stone & Webster and Technip) are
currently designing single-train units
with capacities of up to 1.5MM tpy and
individual pyrolysis furnace capacities
approaching 250kty of ethylene.
From an operating perspective, these
new designs should be capable of
running for five years (or more) between
scheduled turnarounds, with cracking
tubes lasting for 100 000 hours. Routine
steam air decoking cycles should occur
no more frequently than every 60 days,
with ‘oil out to oil in’ durations of 24–48
hours. From a design perspective, the
most recent naphtha-cracking enhance-
ments that seem to have been accepted
by most if not all the commerc i a l
licensors are:
— Front-end depropaniser distillation
sequence
— Three-stage (rather than five-stage)
cracked gas compression
— Binary or ternary refrigeration
— Gas turbine drivers for the major
process compressors
— Reactive distillation for di-olefin
conversion
— Vapour recompression for the
propylene splitter
— Hard-coated HP50 cracking coils
— Raising 120 bar (or higher) steam
pressure in the transfer line exchangers
— Ubiquitous on-line gas chromato-
graph analysers
— Control systems incorporating open
field bus architectures and on-line
economic optimisers
— Integrated cogeneration.
From an on-going operations
perspective, running the unit hard for
five years between scheduled turn-
arounds becomes as much an operator
challenge as a designer challenge.
Accepted operating procedures for
routine manufacturing excellence
include:
— Continuous injection of anti-coking
additives
— On-line washing of the cracked gas
compressor with aromatic solvent
— Extensive use of particulate filters
and process coalescers
— Continuous machine-monitoring
analysers
— Oil mist lubrication with on-line
contaminant analysers.
Process safety management
None of the previously mentioned
performance objectives is relevant if the
cracker cannot be run safely. Since
steam crackers process light flammable
hydrocarbons at elevated temperature
and pressure, and today require at least
100MW of process compression, often
when using super high-pressure steam
even small leaks can cause major
catastrophes. Given the inherent safety
risks, the steam-cracking industry has
been unusually forthcoming in publicly
and collaboratively analysing safety
incidents through ethylene processor
conferences held routinely in Europe
and the US.
Industry participants have embraced
process safety analysis, first voluntarily
and now legally, mandated by Seveso-2
(in Europe) and HAZOP (OSHA and EPA
29 CFR 1910) in the US. The HAZOP
methodology includes:
— Establish goals and objectives
— Evaluate process and document
— Educate and train workforce
— Conduct process safety reviews
— Evaluate risks
— Manage design and operational
change
— Insure integrity of equipment
— Assess human factors
— Investigate incidents
— Determine codes and standards to be
used
— Conduct periodic audits and provide
corrective action.
Beside identifying and then
eliminating or mitigating process risks,
incident analysis can be used to
prioritise those areas of the process
where the risks are the highest and the
consequences the gravest.
Based upon incident analysis, the
steam cracker unit environments that
deserve exceptionally diligent safety
analysis include:
— Managing for potential leaks that
can develop into vapour clouds
— Material failure due to unplanned
exposure of carbon steel to cryogenic
fluids
— Furnace tube creep leaking, to tube
failure
— Build-up of pyrophoric iron sulphide
— Build-up of combustible green oil
— Hydrogen embrittlement
— Hydrogenation reactor thermal
runaways
— Impact resistance and tensile
strength of cold box components
— Expansion joint failures
— Cracked gas compressor valve failures
— Piping failures during cold weather
operations
— Pygas hydrotreater reactor wall
failures during thermal runaways
— Compressor house lube oil leaks
igniting
— Furnace tube failure due to thermal
cycling or intermittent operation at
F i g u re 1 Firewater deluge system in
compressor area

00
P T Q Q1 2006
w w w. e p t q . c o m
 REFINING

cost of piping runs, potential emissions. The primary

but also providing emission source concerns that affect
convenient access for cracker operations include:
maintenance personnel — Combustion gases from the pyrolysis
to clean, repair and, in furnaces
some cases, replace — Fugitive emissions from process
process equipment. equipment (valves, pumps)
Although each project — Coke and decoking residues from
requires site-specific furnace tubes and quench towers
trade-offs, and each — Spent catalysts
company has its own — Boiler blow-down
layout policies, a few — Spent caustic used for neutralisation
general concepts appear — Acid gas from amine system (if used)
to be widely accepted — Oily process wastewater
in the design and — Dilution steam wastewater blow-
engineering community down
for steam crackers. These — Process flare discharges.
involve: Representative emissions quantities
F i g u re 2 Steam curtain in use in the event of a — Site bulk hydrocarbon from continuous discharge sources for a
hydrocarbon vapour cloud storage tankage, not generic 1.2MM tpy light naphtha
only at the periphery of cracker are presented in Table 1, along
excessive temperatures during steam air the plant but adjacent to low-risk with the suggested and potentially more
decoking. facilities (cooling towers, wastewater stringent abatement strategies.
Some of the more innovative treatment plants) too As previously mentioned, actual
approaches to steam cracker safety — Locate process flares downstream of negotiations with environmental
issues have been documented by BASF prevailing winds regulators may require the consider-
(R-09) and are briefly reviewed as — Place utility and infrastructure ation of environmental abatement
follows: facilities at the periphery of the site to strategies well beyond what most
— Firewater deluge systems (Figure 1), help shield the most sensitive process engineers would consider good design
where flammable gases are processed at facilities (compression, reactors) practice. Two recent anecdotal
high pressure — Provide generous alleys and road- experiences with real cracker projects
— Steam curtains (Figure 2) to dissipate ways for emergency access highlight what is possible:
hydrocarbon vapour clouds. — Restrict access to the plant to all but Case history 1 An Asian operating
essential personnel. company is planning a 1.2MM tpy
Elevated fire monitors for Figure 3 provides a generic naphtha liquids cracker that might process a
process furnaces cracker layout scheme that has been Middle East gas condensate containing a
An inherent element of process safety adopted for several grass-roots facilities. modest 1ppmw merc u ry concentration.
management is steam cracker plant The operating company currently runs
layout, which has to address the Environmental discharges merc u ry electrolytic cells for its chlor-
concurrent risks of safety incidents and Naphtha crackers are defined by most alkali business, where it stewards to
security vulnerabilities while providing regulatory agencies as major sources of regulators annual merc u ry losses of onlt
economically viable solutions. The volatile organic hydrocarbon emissions, a few kilogrames. On this project, it
economic considerations involve not and are subject to extreme scrutiny with faced the prospect of explaining to
only equipment spacing to minimise the respect both to actual emissions and regulators how 3 metric tpy of mercury

Representative emissions from a generic 1.2MM tpy naphtha cracker

Description Source Quantity Recommended More stringent

environmental abatement possible abatement
3
Pyrolysis furnace Gas-fired heaters 1.25E6m /hr Multistage low NOx Add selective catalytic
combustion gases burners reduction for NOx
WR naphtha and pygas Breathing losses 5E3m3/hr N2 blanket + Add membrane
storage tanks floating roof recovery system
3
Process boiler blow-down Steam generator drums 11.7m /hr Pressure letdown/flash Plant-wide zero
drums + recovery to boiler discharge
feedwater make-up system water system
3
Quench water Quench water stripper and 228m /hr Tertiary wastewater treatment, Plant-wide zero
B/S of quench bottoms drum including dual media filtration discharge water
with activated carbon system
Caustic scrubber sludge Caustic scrubber 0.4mt/hr Sludge thickening with Caustic treatment and
rotary vacuum filter to recycle system
dry solids
Acid gas MDEA regenerator 0.2mt/hr Claus/Stretford sulphur and Incorporate two-stage
tailgas clean-up tailgas clean-up
3
Steam air decoking gas Pyrolysis furnaces 1E4m /hr Combustion with furnace To dedicated CO boiler
firebox with scrubbing

Table 1

00
P T Q Q1 2006
 REFINING

from the condensate feed could

disappear somewhere inside its proposed
cracker. The outcome is that, if this plant
gets built, an Axens/IFP-type licensed
(and certainly guaranteed) merc u ry and
arsenic trap pretreatment unit will be
installed upstream of the cracker.
Case history 2 A European magistrate
threatened to shut down an operating
company’s well-performing naphtha
crackers because the company sold by-
product pyrolysis cracked fuel oil (XFO)
as a commercial cutter stock for pipestill
resid. The magistrate believed that the
XFO should instead be incinerated as a
hazardous waste.
These incidents may appear to be
environmental anomalies to outsiders,
but those cracker licensors who have
been sucked into asbestos litigation due
to their furnace insulation practices a
generation ago believe anything is
possible. Besides the conventional
approaches to environmental abatement
in crackers, several specific emission
s o u rces have encountered high-profile
scrutiny. These include recent regula-
tions in some jurisdictions about process
flare gas discharges, in which regulators Figure 3 Naphtha cracker suggested layout
sensed that flares designed for
emergency situations were being abused
Representative ethylene Representative propylene
to handle routine leaking pressure safety product specifications
product specifications
valve discharges, which operators should
instead be repairing. This sensitivity may Purity, wt% min 99.5
also modify the standard operating Purity, wt% min 99.95
Methane, ppmw max 400
procedures for scheduled cracker start- Methane, ppmw max 10
Ethane, ppmw max 500
ups and shutdowns to minimise flaring. Ethane, ppmw max 10
Acetylene, ppmw max 5
Another emissions source encounter- Acetylene, ppmw max 2
MAPD, ppmw max 10
CH4 + C2H6, ppmw max 0.05
ing high-profile scrutiny are combustion Non-sat C4, ppmw max 10
Oil, ppmw max 2
gases burned in pyrolysis furnaces. They Sulphur, ppmw max 1
Total sulphur (as H2S), ppmw max 1
do not usually need SO x scrubbers, Water, ppmw max 5
O2, ppmw max 1
because commercial natural gas Alcohol + Ketone, ppmw max 5
N2, ppmw max 5
specifications (2 grains/100 scf) contain Hydrogen, ppmw max 5
CO, ppmw max 0.5
less than 10ppmw sulphur. However, CO, ppmw max 3
CO2, ppmw max 3
petrochemical complexes that allow CO2, ppmw max 3
H2O, ppmw max 3
process by-product gases to be routinely O2, ppmw max 5
H2, ppmv max 5
dumped to the plant’s fuel gas header or Propane, ppmw max 400
COS, ppbv max 20
COS, ppmv 0.5
burner line may be forced to install C3+, ppmv max 10
C4+, ppmv 10
furnace scrubbers if these dumped Alcohols, ppmv max 10
Ethylene, ppmv 100
process gases contain elevated quanti- Total carbonyl (as MEK), 1
H2O, ppmv 5
ties of sulphur. Advancements in cracker ppmv max
Butadiene, ppmv 5
technology to address environmental Methanol, ppmv max 1
Total di-olefin, ppmv 10
concerns include: Chloride (as Cl), ppmw max 1
Green oil, ppmv 20
— Low NOx furnace burners and, if Propadiene, ppmv max 5
Hydrogen, ppmv 5
required, exhaust gas recirculation or NH3, ppmv max 0.2
Arsenic, ppmw max 30
staged combustion Total nitrogen (as N), ppmv max 5
Phosphide, ppmw max 30
— Better process control of furnace Oxygenated organic, ppmv max 5
Ammonia, ppmv 5
dampers and induced draft fans to Arsenic, ppbw max 30
Chlorine (as HCl), ppmv 1
maintain low pollutant emissions
during off-design operating conditions Table 2 Table 3
(for example, max turndown)
— Flare gas hydrocarbon recovery — Less frequent need for steam air de- product specifications have got tighter
systems and better optical control of coking due to passivated cracking tube over the last generation, downstream
dispersing steam on the flare tip surfaces, CFD furnace design to reduce process units must now utilise high-
— Zero discharge wastewater systems, hot spots, and on-line additives. activity (and more sensitive) catalysts and
in which treated wastewater becomes run them at higher productivity rates to
cooling tower make-up Olefins product specifications extend turnaround intervals. The idea of
— Better precious metal recovery and Ethylene and propylene find use in a downstream catalysts becoming more
recycle of spent catalysts variety of chemical products and, as robust (contaminant tolerant) is a myth.

00
P T Q Q1 2006

Figure 4 Scanning electron microscope of ????? Courtesy of SK Corporation
Since cracker products are not
specified differently by end-use need, a
single polymer-grade specification is
provided for ethylene and propylene
that satisfies the needs of all users.
Although there is some disparity
between specific naphtha cracker
operating companies as to their product
specifications, these are minor given that
the product needs to provide satisfactory
performance in a variety of end-use
dispositions. Tables 2 and 3 provide
representative product specifications for
ethylene and propylene.
Cracker design enhancements
As previously mentioned, a number of
design enhancements have been
incorporated into new naphtha
crackers, and their potential benefits
stretch beyond the limits of the
immediate process equipment.
Front-end depropaniser distillation
sequence Historically, naphtha crackers
have been designed to sequentially
purify the product streams by
distillation in ascending order of carbon
number (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5+) after
compression. Since the C1 and C2 towers
operate at cryogenic temperatures and
high pressure (500+ psig), a better idea
would be to configure the C3 tower
(depropaniser) first, at the front end.
Such a configuration reduces the mass
flow through the cryogenic circuit (it
keeps C3+ out of cryogenic service) and
lowers the necessary discharge pressure
of the cracked gas compressor from
550–350psig, thereby reducing the
amount of cryogenic refrigeration duty
that has to be provided to condense the
overhead streams in the cryogenic
towers. Variations on this theme include
combinations of cold box heat
integrations, hydrogen separation, use
of dephlegmators, and dual-pressure
two-tower depropanisers.
Three-stage (rather than five-stage)
cracked gas compression Front-end
depropaniser distillation allows the
cracked gas to be compressed to a much
REFINING
lower pressure, since it is going to a
depropaniser rather a demethaniser.
Conventional process gas compression
configurations tend to be based upon
five-stage two-pressure casing centrifugal
compressors. Each stage requires a
downstream cooler, knockout drum and
facilities to recover condensate while
providing the cooling duty. A three-stage
machine requires less equipment, which
translates into lower capital cost and
reduced operating cost. Ultimately, the
higher mass flow rates and lower
discharge pressures are likely to drive the
business toward the use of much simpler
axial flow process gas compressors, but
much more detailed technology
development will be required to
maintain equipment reliability when
processing dirty and sometimes
corrosive cracked gas.
Binary or ternary refrigeration The
cryogenic distillation towers have
historically required naphtha crackers to
provide separate ethylene and propylene
cryogenic refrigeration circuits, each
with its own compressor and auxiliaries
to provide Joule-Thompson cooling. The
LNG business has for the past ten years
embraced binary and/or ternary
refrigerants, which allow the use of a
single refrigeration circuit to meet a
variety of temperature/pressure cooling
requirements within a cracker. Adoption
of this technology by the cracker
“Competitive pressures are
likely to increase the
commercial penetration of
gas turbines and force
everyone to overcome the
perceived reliability
(instrument trip) and
stability issues”
00
P T Q Q1 2006
business should ultimately lower capital
costs and increase reliability.
Gas turbine drivers for the major
process compressors Gas turbine drivers
for steam crackers have provided a
love/hate relationship among operators
since GE Frame 3 machines were first
introduced 40 years ago. Some operators
swear by them, while others swear at
them. The conventional approach is to
use combination extraction/condensing
steam turbine drivers. Competitive
pressures are likely to increase the
commercial penetration of gas turbines
and force everyone to overcome the
perceived reliability (instrument trip)
and stability issues. The pressures are
driven by:
— Higher output ratings (up to 100 000
horsepower each)
— Use of a single ternary refrigeration
compressor rather than two smaller
ethylene/propylene machines
— Eliminate the energy-wasting
characteristics of condensing steam
— Captive olefin (rather than mer-
chant) markets providing a valuable
sink for the additional process steam
produced in gas turbine systems (in
their heat-recovery sections) in down-
stream chemical-processing units
— Industry acknowledgement that
recovering gas turbine exhaust heat in
the cracking furnaces is too expensive,
too complicated and too unreliable.
Reactive distillation for di-olefin
conversion Historically, fixed-bed
hydrogenation units were used to
convert di-olefins to their mono-olefin
counterparts. Problems included
thermal runaways, excessive catalyst
fouling, and green polymer formation
and migration. If the temperature/
pressure/composition environment in a
distillation tower is conducive to
hydrogenation of the di-olefins, the
tower can be designed with an internal
catalyst bed reactor section that
eliminates most of the problems
previously identified. Even when a
catalytic reactor environment is not
conducive to total di-olefin destruction
(as in front-end depropanisers), a small
trim fixed-bed reactor behind a catalytic
distillation section can still be cost
justified by increasing reliability while
avoiding spare catalyst charges and
redundant parallel fixed-bed reactors.
Vapour recompression for the propylene
splitter The largest single distillation
service in a naphtha cracker is for
separating commercial specification
polymer-grade propylene from propane.
Due to the close boiling points of
propane and propylene, this tower has
at least 125 trays (200 if also processing
FCC propylene), a high reflux ratio
(12–15), and an enormous reboiler and
condenser heat duty. Adopting vapour

compression distillation increases
capital cost, but substantially reduces
energy consumption and is ROI justified
in most business environments.
Hard-coated HP50 cracking coils The
steam-cracking industry suffers/tolerates
routine coke formation in the cracking
coils, and expends an enormous amount
of capital investment and routine
process downtime to cope with it. As the
service and reliability demands of the
business have increased, the industry
has migrated from HK40 to HP50
cracking tube metallurgy. The primary
constituents of available HP50 austinitic
stainless steel grades are quantified as
follows:
Chrome 24–28%
Nickel 33–37%
Carbon 0.35–0.45%
Niobium stabilised
Lab analyses of coked commercial
tubes indicate that the layer of coke
immediately adjacent to the bar tube
surface is characterised by a metal-
containing discontinuous, curled
filamentous carbon. The metal ions are
those of the tube metallurgy: iron, nickel
and chrome. Above this is a lamellar
layer of continuous high-density coke,
and above this is a layer of low-density
discontinuous, agglomerated coke
particles. A schematic drawing of the
three-layer coke deposits is shown in
Figure 4.
Two approaches are used commer-
cially to minimise the exposure of
cracked gas to reduced metal on the
tube surface, which could catalyse coke
formation: passivate the metal ions to a
sulphide or oxide, and/or hard coat the
tube with a ceramic or alloy layer, which
preserves the mechanical and heat-
transfer capabilities of the tube while
preventing atomic contact between
reduced metal and coke pre-cursors in
the process gas stream. Hard coating
commercial products include:
— AlcroPlex bidiffusional ceramic
coating
— Manoir’s CoatAlloy Ni/Cr slurry
coating
— N o v a ’s ANZ400 ceramic joint
venture with Kubota
— Daido Steel’s EST Cr/Ni/Mo oxide
coating.
Raising 120 bar (or higher) steam
pressure in the transfer line exchangers
Immediate quenching of cracked gas
must occur to avoid over-cracking,
which produces excessive natural gas
and hydrogen at the expense of
ethylene and propylene yield. This is
accomplished just downstream of the
cracking coils in transfer line
exchangers, which produce super-high-
pressure saturated steam. The steam is
then redirected back into the furnace
convection section to super-heat it so
REFINING
that it can be used to power a steam
turbine driver. Raising higher-pressure
steam means producing more power
from a given quantity of available heat.
Over the past 25 years, the industry has
relentlessly increased transfer line
exchanger steam pressure from
600–1500 psig and is capable of going
higher.
Ubiquitous on-line gas chromatograph
analysers On-line gas chromatographs
allow process operators to steward the
purity of naphtha cracker products as
they are produced, rather than relying
upon manual sampling and analysis
that occurs perhaps once per shift and
takes several hours for results to find
their way from the lab to the operator’s
log book. Since gas chromatographs are
sensitive instruments, subject to process
fouling and occasional drifting, they are
not used for direct process control.
However, gas chromatographs are
valuable in helping process operators
troubleshoot process trends and are a
reliable predictor of whether product
streams coming off the unit are on-spec
or off-spec. When used judiciously, on-
line gas chromatographs allow operators
(and hardware designers) to minimise
the number and size of product
rundown tanks, the working capital tied
up in intermediate storage, and allow
product to flow from the distillation
tower by pipeline directly to down-
stream consumers.
Control systems incorporating open
field bus architectures and on-line
economic optimisers Over the past
generation, process control has evolved
from field control with pneumatic
instruments to digital control in
centralised process control computers,
then back out to distributed control
functions. These electronic capabilities,
once limited to control functionality,
now carry signals that are used for
QC/QA, computer control process
economic optimisation, machine
condition surveillance and routine
predictive maintenance.
When formerly used exclusively for
system control and data acquisition
(SCADA), proprietary system architec-
tures were acceptable, since system
control vendors were required to
provide performance guarantees.
However, today the wide variety of
sensors that needs to be connected to a
system, and the myriad uses for these
signals, calls for open systems with
common architectures. Each of the
major computer control hardware
vendors is participating both in
proprietary and open systems develop-
ment to maintain competitiveness
independent of the direction of the
industry.
The rate of commercial adoption of
00
P T Q Q1 2006
Foundation Fieldbus standards, Hart
Communication Standards or even ever-
present IBM Ethernet will require
operators to stay on top of the trends in
order to remain competitive. Many of
the previously mentioned vendors also
offer in-house software application
programs that hang off the process
computer and calculate process variable
set points driven by business economic
optimisation.
Integrated cogeneration The high-
energy intensity of naphtha crackers,
plus the downstream process facilities
that often consume light olefins
production, promote onsite cogener-
ation, making both electricity and
process steam. However, the integration
of gas turbines as mechanical drives for
the various process and refrigeration
compressors offers an integrated
approach to acquire the economic
benefits of cogeneration at a much lower
cost than standalone “cogen” systems.
Although individual gas turbines
could conceivably drive process
equipment and electric generators on
the same shaft, the variable speed needs
of the process equipment and the fixed
synchronisation speed needs of the
electrical generator seem incompatible.
Solid-state electronics could probably
overcome the machine speed issues, but
at considerable cost and energy penalty.
As previously mentioned, using gas
turbine exhaust to fire the pyrolysis
furnaces has been widely commercial-
ised and widely criticised for its
immense cost (despite the energy
efficiency benefits). If a new plant is
only going to need one cracked gas
compressor and one ternary refriger-
ation compressor, there is merit to
driving them both with gas turbines and
exhausting turbine gas into on-purpose
heat-recovery high-pressure steam
generators. The high-pressure steam
could then be consumed in a steam
turbine used to drive an electrical
generator at fixed speed. Such a design
requires consideration of the site-wide,
site-specific steam and utility balance.
Manufacturing excellence
The global demand for ethylene exceeds
100MM tpy, and there are several
hundred steam crackers trying to satisfy
this need while operating in a safe,
reliable and economically competitive
mode. Not everybody can afford to
build a new state-of-the-art cracker. For
those people who have to make do with
what they have, there are still wonderful
opportunities to improve without
having to spend an enormous amount
of capital. Some of the tried-and-true
approaches that can make a meaningful
economic impact on the business are
discussed below.

Change the end point of purchased
naphtha Many sellers of naphtha try to
satisfy perceived industry specs for
naphtha, but are open to making minor
process changes to improve customer
economics. The conventional approach
at either the sell side or the buy side is to
install a naphtha splitter. Light naphtha
overhead goes to steam cracking for
olefins; heavy naphtha bottoms goes to
catalytic reforming for aromatics. Any
long-term study of the business shows
that the relative price of aromatics
(versus olefins) changes with time.
When aromatics prices are high
compared to olefins, distilling more of
the C7/C8 naphtha components from
the naphtha splitter bottoms into the
overhead product (slightly higher
reboiler temperature) will convert two-
thirds of this material to aromatics in
the steam cracker (in the form of pygas),
rather than converting only one-third of
the material to aromatics in the cat
reformer. When olefins are precious,
reverse the process.
Keep the sludge out of the naphtha and
out of the furnace Anyone who has had
their personal character improved by
manually shovelling out the bottom
sludge in a naphtha feed tank during a
turnaround will be amazed that these
process units run at all. The bottom
sludge components never seem to find
their way into a sample bomb to be
discovered, analysed and quantified in
the lab, but they exist nevertheless.
Anyone who has tried to run down their
naphtha inventory to zero going into a
planned turnaround has probably
encountered a premature shutdown due
to unknown causes. It is caused by the
sludge from the bottom of the tank
finding its way onto the radiant coils
and maybe beyond.
Better business diligence is required
when buying naphtha cargoes, especially
marine cargoes or spot marine cargoes
(particularly distress price spot marine
cargoes), to mitigate the purchase of
sludge and maybe even saltwater-
contaminated sludge. The sludge may sit
in the bottom of the feed tank for a year
or more, but it will find its way into the
unit unless good business practices are
employed. Naphtha being pumped into
the feed tank should first be processed
through particulate filters and emulsion
coalescers, even if it comes from a splitter
tower in the refinery just over the fence.
Naphtha from the tank to the process
unit should then again go through a
second set of filter/coalescer units,
because settling time in the naphtha feed
tank can agglomerate fine solids and
undissolve aqueous/oil liquids.
Employ redundant critical instrument
sensors Triggering a $25MM emergency
process unit shutdown due to legitimate
REFINING
process excursions is bad enough, but
triggering the shutdown from a false
instrument trip is much worse. Voting
logic systems are used by most
operators, but their purpose can be
compromised by inadequate routine
instrument maintenance. Some
instruments are particularly sensitive to
grid power quality, such that grid power
conditioning equipment is a small cost
insurance policy if periodic voltage
surges (in either direction) or power
frequency oscillations are an issue. Most
operators pay adequate attention to
inside battery limits instrumentation,
but not enough attention to offsite
utility instrumentation (steam, instru-
ment air, power, cooling water, fuel and
inert gas) that can just as easily bring
down a process unit. New wireless
communication capability can help
debottleneck hard wire limits for non-
critical applications.
Consider rotating machine condition
monitoring instrumentation Most
crackers have spare in-line pumps;
almost none have spare in-line
compressors. A wealth of inexpensive on-
line machinery-monitoring equipment
can keep the unit up, reveal conditions
that can be fixed without a shutdown
and prepare for an eventual machine
teardown by having the needed spare
parts in hand when the casing is split.
Most of the downtime associated with
equipment failure is spent waiting for
needed parts to arrive rather than for
teardown, diagnosis, repair or reinstalla-
tion. Specific opportunities exist for:
— Vibration signature analysis
— Alignment
— IR thermography for hot spots
— Power consumption
— Load
— Lube oil analysis for contamination
and accoustic wave viscometry
— Over-speed protection
— Ultrasound for equipment integrity.
Maintain utility fluid quality A major
challenge for achieving five-year turn-
around frequency is keeping the utility
heat exchanger coefficients high, since
optimised process units do not carry
much spare surface area. In the more
simple terms, make high-quality process
steam from high-quality boiler feed
water, and use only high-quality cooling
water.
Consider on-line chemical additives
Most crackers employ some form of on-
line routine cracked gas compressor
cleaning. This capability has evolved
from finely ground walnut shells to
highly aromatic cleaning solvents. They
work, but are not inexpensive. More
recently, anti-coking additives are now
widely used, mostly by injecting at the
crossover point between the convection
section and radiant section, but in some
00
P T Q Q1 2006
cases prior to the convection section.
Hydraulic capacity debottlenecking
Debottlenecking with new facilities (for
example, new furnaces, revamped
furnaces, new towers) is expensive, even
when compared to grass-roots crackers.
However, many crackers are capacity
limited by hydraulic constraints that
can often be overcome with inexpensive
upgrades. Some of the more popular
opportunities are:
— Replacing sieve and valve trays with
structured packing
— Unloading the cracked gas
compressor by operating at a slightly
lower severity
— Using high-capacity ripple or
vertical sieve trays
— Adding suction flow inducers to
NPSH limited pumps
— Adding internal baffles to knockout
and flash drums to improve flow regime
— Using better distributors for catalyst
and adsorbent beds, and installing them
properly
— Retubing with higher strength
metallurgy that has thinner walls,
increasing ID while maintaining the
same OD
— Recalibrating the furnace louvers for
better excess air control.
References
1 EPA 550-R-98-005, EPA/OSHA Joint Chem-
ical Accident Investigation Report-Shell
Chemical Company, Deer Park, Texas, June
1998.
2 Sasol News Center, Explosion at Sasol
Polymers’ Ethylene plant in Secunda, 2 Sep
2004.
3 Petrochina 2002 Safety Report.
4 Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics sees limited
impact from Texas plant fire, Forbes, 7 Oct
2005.
5 Sasol News Center, Explosion at Sasol
Polymers’ Ethylene plant in Secunda, Sep
2004.
6 About us 1981–1990, Indian Petrochemical
Corporation Limited.
7 BP Chocolate Bayou unit fire finally
extinguished, Houston Chro n i c l e, 13 Aug
2005.
8 OSHA 3132, Process safety management, US
Department of Labor, OSHA, 2000.
9 BASF AG Works Fire Department, Reports:
fire prevention in the USA.
Tony Pavone is a project manager for SRI
Consulting. His work experience has been
divided equally among design/
construction (Parsons/Badger),
manufacturing (ExxonMobil) and
consulting (SRI). He is a licensed
professional engineer and teaches the
chemical engineering process design
course at Stanford. He graduated from RPI
and MIT, and is a member of AIChE and
ACS. Email: apavone@sriconsulting.com