What is the reason why flexible coking has not been adopted by large domestic refineries?

Given the current environmental situation, flexible coking has its advantages, and its energy-saving benefits are significant. We once considered installing such a system as well, but the Americans demanded too much.

That company in Yingkou, under CNOOC, said it planned to build something; I’m not sure if it has been built yet Which company are you from! ?

This post was last edited by The wise on 2017-8-26 at 18:55. Large domestic refineries have a relatively stable source of crude oil, and the quality of this oil is fairly good; even when heavy-grade crude is used, hydrogenation processes are the preferred method. The raw materials used in flexible coking are relatively diverse, heavy and of poor quality, and come in small quantities; generally, refineries use materials of slightly better quality.

There isn’t any such thing available in China at the moment; for technologies related to flexible coking, as well as the development of process packages and provision of training services, we have to rely on foreign sources. We are a local refinery, and we have discussed this matter with ExxonMobil in the past

That’s right; Fle*cokingTM is a patented process by ExxonMobil, which is used in countries such as Japan, Venezuela, the United States, and Greece. In 2014, CNOOC Petrochemical (Yingkou) Company introduced this process package in China for the first time; the project was designed by Hetu Engineering Design. Compared with traditional delayed coking processes, Fle*cokingTM gasifies low-value petroleum coke into clean fuel gas in a completely closed system, thereby **improving the technical and economic performance of the facility; it also provides a new technological solution for the processing of low-quality residue oil.

You know quite a lot about this. Is coking also considered a type of chemical processing facility? After all, there is an excess of oil refining capacity at the moment, and many private oil refineries are turning to chemical production. What do you think are its prospects for development?

It is a trend for private refineries to develop into downstream derivative businesses, but the key is to work together to improve management. If it remains like starting a small oil refinery back then, it won’t have long-lasting viability.

The flexible coking units in the United States have been in safe operation for 30 years; they feature reliable process technology, high operational safety, and are environmentally friendly. It has characteristics such as a long operation cycle, but the following issues also need to be taken into account. First is the issue of utilizing gas with low calorific value; furthermore, backup measures for supplying fuel gas to users of such gas must be considered in case flexible coking operations become unstable or cease. Secondly, the investment in flexible coking units is 1.3 times that of delayed coking units of the same scale, and the investment in heaters and boilers for low-calorific-value gas is 15%–25% higher than that for conventional heaters and boilers. Thirdly, flexible coking units demonstrate their advantages in newly built refineries, whereas adding such units to existing refineries faces certain limitations; mainly, the existing heaters and boilers cannot utilize gas with low calorific value, and the difficulty of making modifications is also high. This is one of the reasons why this technology has not been widely adopted.

As far as I know, the Zhonghai Yingkou petrochemical project has not been completed. Hengyi’s project in Brunei initially involved 800,000 tons of flexible coking, but this has since been changed.

A domestic design institute wants to convert part of its catalytic cracking and regeneration units into fluidized coking units; some technical challenges have not yet been overcome. Recently, there is a foreign project seeking candidates for fluidized coking work, with preference given to those with experience in catalytic processes