What damages can a failure in the catalytic air compressor cause to an entire oil refinery?
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What damages can a failure in the catalytic air compressor cause to an entire oil refinery?
What malfunction has occurred? Can’t the air compressor run? It is entirely technically feasible for the compressor to stop operating while the catalytic unit remains on. The quality of gasoline and diesel can be satisfactory; a small amount of LPG can also be added depending on the cooling temperature at the separator, but it is necessary to send a large amount of gas to the flare, which may not be economical!
Are there no other impacts besides the economic inappropriateness? How to handle crude gasoline
By feeding crude gasoline into the stabilizer tower and maintaining the pressure in that tower, it is possible to ensure that the vapor pressure of the gasoline meets the required standards
Generally, that’s not done – it’s too wasteful! Torches are not attractive either; safety and environmental protection do not permit them! If the compressor stops and cannot start again for a short time, cut off the feed or disconnect one of the two devices; this makes it easier to get it running again.
Gas pipe balance achieved; ethylbenzene–styrene production halted.
After the compressor fails and stops operating, try not to cut off the feed, especially in catalytic cracking operations with a capacity of over 1 million tons per year. To reduce the processing load and maintain low-volume production, the air compressor needs to be repaired as soon as possible. If the downtime is too long, exceeding 3 days, then considering cutting off the material becomes necessary. If the feed is cut off, the reaction process will be affected; there is a risk of material leakage, excessive coking in the settler, and the catalyst failing to flow properly, leading to shutdown. So, what can be maintained should be maintained as much as possible.
When the compressor fails and shuts down, the excess gas is vented through flares, resulting in losses of liquefied gas and pressure spikes in the gas pipeline network. At the same time, the production capacity of the facility decreases. If other facilities continue to operate at their normal capacity during this shutdown period, then facilities such as those for distillation, coking, benzene processing, gas separation, wax oil hydrogenation, reforming, and further wax oil hydrogenation will also see reduced production capacities. In particular, it is important to ensure that there are sufficient reserves of raw materials for the gas separation facility; otherwise, it will have to shut down as well
We have encountered this situation before: the compressor failed, but production did not stop; instead, the feed rate was reduced, the rich gas was sent to the flare, and the crude vapor went directly into the stabilizer. There’s no choice; the costs associated with starting up and shutting down large-scale facilities are too high.