Tag: Refinery

Kuwait is in the middle of a major overhaul and expansion of its refining capacity, as well as boosting LPG output and sour gas processing.

Hydrocarbon contamination of sour water streams feeding sour water strippers is a well-known challenge in the refining and gas processing industry. The source of this challenge is the formation of a stable oil emulsion in an aqueous phase that may contain both H 2 S and NH 3 . The typical approach to the problem involves large residence time tanks with the assumption that droplet settling will occur over a long enough time frame. In practice, droplet settling is very slow due to a variety of reasons, and as a result, operators encounter sour water heat exchanger fouling, stripper fouling, hydrocarbon excursions to sulphur recovery units along with other operating challenges. M. Thundyil, D. Seeger and E. McIntosh of Transcend Solutions present a case study of the TORSEP™ oil and solids removal system for contamination removal from a sour water feed stream. The case study illustrates the effect on heat exchanger fouling along with the effect of the variation of several system parameters on operating performance and economics.

The refining industry, the source of half of the world’s elemental sulphur, continues to face major structural changes from changing feedstock and product slates and increasing regulatory burdens.

Using case studies of a refinery amine unit and a sour water stripper (SWS), U. M. Sridhar of Three Ten Initiative Technologies LLP, N. A. Hatcher and R. H. Weiland of Optimized Gas Treating Inc. demonstrate the capabilities of a mechanistic, chemistry-based, truly predictive model for calculating corrosion rates for various amines and for sour water. At a time when asset integrity is much sought after, the utility of this fully predictive model is to prevent failures before they occur, rationally select materials of construction, enhance plant safety, and mitigate risk.