【Major Industrial Equipment in the Chemical Industry】095 – Domestic 2.1 million tons/year coke tower
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The past decade has been a period of rapid development for China’s chemical industry, marked by the emergence of many new processes, products, and equipment. There has also been significant progress in China’s chemical processing equipment, which has contributed to the swift advancement of the petrochemical sector. Here, we have compiled some of the achievements and breakthroughs made by Chinese equipment manufacturers in terms of larger-scale production and greater use of domestic equipment. We invite everyone to share their insights and engage in discussions, to cheer for Made in China and to support the development of chemical processing equipment! *********************************** On March 23, 2014, the sun was shining brightly. The Zhenhai coke tower, a key project of Sinopec manufactured by China National Second Heavy Machinery Group Corporation (SNHMC), was successfully completed at the Zhenjiang facility, loaded onto a ship, and slowly departed the port. These are the first two domestically produced 2.1 million tons per year coke ovens to be successfully manufactured in China, marking a new improvement in the level of pressure vessel manufacturing by SINOPEC CNPC Heavy Industries. They also represent another successful example of the strategic cooperation between SINOPEC CNPC Heavy Industries and Sinopec.
At 10 a.m. on April 2, the two largest coke towers in China were successfully hoisted into place at Zhenhai Refining & Chemical’s newly built delayed coking unit. The new delayed coking unit with a capacity of 2.1 million tons per year began construction on December 27, 2012. It is a key facility within Zhenhai Refining & Chemical’s project to adjust and upgrade its heavy oil processing capabilities, with a total investment of 1.158 billion yuan. Once put into operation, this facility will not only enable the company to increase its crude oil processing capacity by 3 million tons per year and produce around 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide for use as a raw material in ethylene cracking, but it will also significantly improve the quality of liquefied gas and reduce the amount of alkaline slag generated by nearly 70%, bringing clear environmental and economic benefits. The coke tower is 40.8 meters tall, 9.8 meters in diameter, and weighs 580 tons; it is the most critical and essential equipment in the coking plant. What is even more special is that the connection between its skirt base and the cylinder body uses a tightly fitted overlapping design, which is a first in China; it has been included in Sinopec’s projects aimed at promoting the use of domestic equipment. After going through various stages such as preliminary technical discussions with the manufacturer, selection of manufacturing methods, inspection of material production, trial production of skirt base prototypes, and actual manufacturing, a period of nearly one and a half years was required before the production was completed in late March 2015; it was then delivered to the construction site on March 27. To ensure the safe completion of the tower lifting, the relevant departments of the company and the construction unit carried out tasks such as preparing the lifting site in advance, resolving issues related to the routes for transporting large equipment, and organizing expert reviews of the lifting plan. Starting from March 30, the construction contractor Ningbo Engineering Company adopted a lifting plan that involved using a 1,250-ton crawler crane as the main lifting device and two 280-ton crawler cranes for assisting with the lifting process. Through phased operations, the two coke towers were successfully lifted into place. Currently, the delayed coking unit is progressing with the installation of projects such as the coke tower frame, coke cutting system, and process pipelines in accordance with the schedule.
How big is the largest coke tower currently in use? ? ?