PTQ Q3 2023 Issue

External AR

370

Crude oil to crude heater

561

Steam

656

HVGO

HVGO product

780

Vacuum heater outlet

429

New active panels, higher stripping eciency

467

Stripping steam

566

New routing

498

680

VR product

567

437

External air to vac. heater

Crude oil

Figure 10 Crude and AR feed preheat

6 Golden S, Barletta A, White S, De-Mystifying Vacuum Ejector System, PTQ, Q4 2022. 7 Barletta A, Why vacuum unit heaters coke, PTQ, Autumn 2002, 123-127. 8 Hanson D, Langston J, Keen J, Johnson C, Low capital crude unit revamp increases product yield, Oil and Gas Journal , Mar 24, 2003. 9 Barletta T, Diesel and VGO Recovery, PTQ Revamps, 2000. 10 Hanson D, Barletta A, Bernikas J, An atmospheric crude tower revamp, PTQ , Q2 2005. 11 Barletta A, White S, Chunangad K, Designing a crude unit heat exchanger network, PTQ Sour and Heavy , 2012. 12 Golden S, White S, Increasing crude unit preheat, PTQ, Q1 2000. Scott Golden is President of Process Consulting Services. He has more than 41 years of experience including refinery process design, refinery technical service, and distillation equipment design. Email: sgolden@revamps.com Tony Barletta is Vice President of Process Consulting Services. He has more than 35 years of experience with refinery revamps and process design for heavy oil units. Email: tbarletta@revamps.com Steve White is a Chemical Engineer with Process Consulting Services. He handles large capital grassroot process design packages. He has more than 45 years of process design experience for refinery revamps and grassroots units. Ben C Miller is a process engineer at CITGO’s Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex. His refinery experience includes process opti - misation, design, and planning in the crude and hydroprocessing units. He holds a BS in chemical engineering from Louisiana Tech University.

Successful revamps In today’s environment, it is critical to maximise existing asset utilisation while maintaining capital discipline. This can be the difference between a favourable revamp and one that does not meet return on investment requirements. Modifications must work within existing process flow scheme and equipment realities while selectively modify- ing them only as needed. Simply applying rote thinking and other canned approaches can be impractical and poten- tially counterproductive. This revamp resulted in a large increase in diesel and HVGO recovery without increasing energy consumption. 12 Creative solutions driven by deep understanding of equipment design and its impact on per- formance were key to fixing and exploiting underutilised equipment. References 1 White S, Barletta A, Refiners processing heavy crudes can experi - ence crude distillation problems, Oil and Gas Journal, Nov 18, 2002. 2 Golden S, Barletta A, Designing vacuum units, PTQ, Q2 2006, 105-110. 3 Barletta A, Kurzym K, Consider retrofits to handle high-viscosity crudes, Hydrocarbon Processing , Sept 2004. 4 Hartman E, Barletta A, Solliec L, Tretzer P, Importance of testing for vacuum ejectors in refinery service, PTQ , Q2 2022. 5 Golden S, Barletta A, White S, Campbell D, Identifying the root cause of underperforming ejector systems, PTQ Revamps, 2022 .

PTQ Q3 2023