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| Refining | ||
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Refining The Refining Process And Technologies Crude oil is a mix of hydrocarbons, andrefining process involves the breaking up of crude oil into a number of products withvarying arrangements of atoms of hydrogen and carbon. The refinery process can bebifurcated as under.
The components of crude oil, which have tobe broken up, have different boiling temperatures. Primary processing involves heating ofcrude oil up to a maximum of about 430º C and subsequent vaporizing of each of thecomponents. The main part of the primary processing unit is the fractionating tower/ crudedistillation unit, which is a tall and a cylindrical column through which a mixture of hotvapor and liquid crude is allowed to pass. The lighter compounds/ fractions are collectedat the top of the tower and the heavier components are pushed down. The fractionatingtower consists of a number of trays filled with special contacting devices and each of thefractions with varying boiling temperatures flow down the respective trays through acooling process. The compounds, which are normally fractionated from distillation, are Gas& LPG, Naphtha, SKO and HSD. All products except SKO & HSD would require furthertreatment. The liquid that is still unvaporized flows down as atmospheric residue. The atmospheric residue, which flows out ofthe fractionating column, is then heated in the range of 400ºC-600ºC and passed into aHigh Vacuum Column (HVU). The atmospheric residue is broken up to VGO (Vacuum Gas Oil) andVAC residue (also known as Short residue). VGO is the feed for secondary processing andVAC residue is used for manufacture of FO, LSHS and Bitumen. The typical boiling ranges of each of thefractions of crude oil are given below. Boiling Ranges Of Each Of The Fraction OfCrude Oil
Secondary processing As stated earlier, some of the productsseparated through distillation do not match product standards and further processing isrequired to render the product marketable. This is done through product specific processeslike Catalytic Reforming, Amine Treating, Hydro treating, Alkalization etc. In addition, the VGO produced by HVU needsfurther processing to manufacture more value-added products. This is done through eitheraddition of Hydrogen or through carbon rejection. "Cracking" is a process, by whichthe larger molecules of heavier products are broken into smaller molecules, therebyproportionately increasing the lighter fractions. Hydrocracking, Catalytic cracking andThermal cracking are more popular and widely used than other processing methods though theactual method would depend on the quality of crude and the required yield pattern. Vis-breaking (Viscosity Breaking or VB) isan important application of Thermal Cracking used to produce FO of lower viscosity whileincreasing the proportion of light products. The VAC residue needs further processingeither through Vis-breaking to produce FO of acceptable quality or can be hardened to besold as Bitumen. In India, secondary processing facilitiesare available in 7 refineries, of which IOC Koyali only uses both the Hydrocracking andthe Catalytic cracking method. All other refineries use the carbon rejectionprocess.
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