Introduction

Modern refinery operations are very complex and, to a person unfamiliar with the industry, it seems to be an impossible task to reduce the complexity to a reduce the complexity to a coordinated group of understandable process. It is the purpose of this book to present the refinery processes, as far as possible, in the same order in which the crude flows through the refinery in order t show the purposes and interrelationships of the processing units. The ease-study method is best for quick understanding and we recommend that a crude oil be selected and yield and cost calculations be made as the refining processes are studied in order. An example problem is given in Chapter 17 for a refinery of low complexity and the example problem starting in Chapter 4 and ending in Chapter 18 presents a complex refinery typical of today’s operations.

The typical fuels refinery has as a goal the conversion of as much of the barrel of crude oil into transportation fuels as is economically practical. Although refineries produce many profitable products, the high-volume profitable products are the transportation fuels gasoline, diesel and turbine fuels, and the light heating oils. No. 1 and No. 2. These transportation fuels have boiling points between 0 and 345c. Light heating oils are not properly transportation fuels but the hydrocarbon components are interchangeable with those of diesel and jet fuels, only the additives are different. Although products such as lubricating oils, refrigeration and transformer oils, and petrochemical feedstock’s are profitable, they amount to less than 5 percent of the total crude oil charged to U.S. refineries.

The process flow and products for a complete refinery of high complexity are shown in Figure 1.1. The processing equipment indicated is for processing crude oils of average gravities and sulfur contents. Crude oils with low API gravities and high sulfur contents require additional hydro treating equipment.

The quality of crude oils processed by U.S. refineries is expected to worsen slowly in the future with the sulfur contents and densities to increase. The greater densities will mean more of the crude oil will boil above 566C. Historically this high-boiling material or residua has been used as heavy fuel oil but the demand for these heavy fuel oils has been refineries to process the entire barrel of crude rather than just the material boiling below 1050F. Sulfur restrictions on fuels will affect bottom-of-barrel processing as well. These factors will require extensive refinery additions and modernization and the shift in market requirements among gasoline’s and reformulated fuels for transportation will challenge catalyst suppliers and refinery engineers to develop innovative solutions to these problems.