SRM University | Chemical Engineering | December 13, 2013

A Brief Overview of the

Refining Process & Column
Internals
IN-PLANT TRAINING REPORT
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., Kochi Refinery
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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the report that the report titled A Brief Overview of
the Refining Process & Column Internals is an authentic record of the in-
plant training course completed by AVINASH K.V., Reg. No. 1071110019,
of SRM University, Kattankulathur, during the period December 2 to
December 13, 2013 under my supervision and guidance.


Guide:
Date:










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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Having been a part of a prestigious organization like BPCL-Kochi Refinery,
I would like to acknowledge all those who made my tenure here a great
learning experience.
First of all, I would express my gratitude to the management for letting me
be part of this organization. Next, I take this opportunity to express my
profound gratitude to Mrs. Rajeswari D, for her guidance and monitoring
throughout the training period. I also thank Mr. Jose Jacob for his guidance.
I am deeply indebted to the apprentice trainees, especially, George Naveen
and colleagues who lend their valuable time as well as thoughts in enabling
this endeavor to be very educative and enjoyable. I also extend my gratitude
to all the staff members of BPCL-KRL, Ambalamugal for their support.










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DECLARATION

I, hereby, declare that this project report entitled A Brief Overview of the
Refining Process & Column Internals has been prepared by me under the
supervision of Mrs. Rajeswari D., Engineer (P.E), BPCL-Kochi Refinery.
I also declare that this dissertation has not been submitted by me fully or
partly for the award of any degree, diploma, title or recognition earlier.


Avinash K.V.
Reg. No. 1071110019
Dept. of Chemical Engineering
SRM University, Kattankulathur
Tamil Nadu


Place:
Date:


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CONTENTS












Chapter Title Page #
1 Certificate i
2 Acknowledgement ii
3 Declaration iii
4 Profile of BPCL-KR 5
5 Units and Products 8
6 CDU-2 Shutdown A study of Column
Internals & Equipment
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7 Conclusion 23
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CHAPTER 1
Profile of BPCL KR
Kochi Refinery, a unit of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), embarked on
its journey in 1966 with a capacity of 50,000 barrels per day. Formerly known as Cochin
Refineries Limited and later renamed as Kochi Refineries Limited, the refinery was
originally established as a joint venture in collaboration with Phillips Petroleum
Corporation, USA. Today it is a frontline entity as a unit of the Fortune 500 Company,
BPCL.
Kochi Refinery, located at Ambalmugal near the city of Kochi in Kerala, is one of the
two Refineries of BPCL, presently having a crude oil refining capacity of 9.5 Million
Metric Ton per Annum (MMTPA). The product portfolio of the 190,000 barrels per day
refinery today includes petrochemical feedstock and specialty products in addition to its
range of quality fuels.
Fuel products of this fuel based refinery includes Liquefied Petroleum Gas, Naphtha,
Motor Spirit, Kerosene, Aviation Turbine Fuel, High Speed Diesel, Fuel Oils and
Asphalt. Specialty products for the domestic markets include Benzene, Toluene,
Propylene, Special Boiling Point Spirit, Poly Isobutene and sulfur.
The refinery has implemented world class technology and systems for operations and
enterprise resource planning. It is an ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems
(EMS) and ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System (QMS) accredited company and
has also obtained the ISO 17025 (Testing Methods in Quality Control) certification from
NABL (National Accreditation Board for testing & Calibration of Laboratories). The
refinery has successfully implemented the Occupational Health and Safety Management
System (OHSAS) 18001:2007 in the year 2009.
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With the prestigious Crude Oil receipt
facilities consisting of the Single Point
Mooring (SPM) and the associated shore
tank farm in place since December 2007,
the refinery is equipped to receive crude
oil in Very Large Crude Carriers
(VLCCs). This facility helps Kochi
refinery in reducing the freight charges to
a great extent, over and above increasing
flexibility in crude oil selection. This, thereby, is a major infrastructure facility to
accelerate the future growth of Kochi Refinery.
The refinery has facilities to evacuate products to the consuming centers through road,
rail, ships and through pipelines. All the major industries in the area are connected to the
refinery for product receipt. The BPCL installation at Irumpanam, to which the refinery is
connected by pipelines, is the major product distribution centre of the refinery. Petronet
CCK, a joint venture company of BPCL looks after the 300 km long pipeline that
connects the refinery to various consumption points in Tamil Nadu such as Coimbatore
and Karur.
Of the two-part Capacity Expansion cum Modernisation Project (PhaseII), the capacity
expansion to 9.5 MMTPA has been successfully completed and refinery modernisation
slated for completion in August 2010 would equip the refinery to produce auto-fuels
conforming to Euro-III and partly Euro-IV specifications.
The refinerys foray into direct marketing began since 1993 through marketing of its
aromatic products - Benzene and Toluene. The entry into the international petroleum
business stream began with its first parcel of Fuel Oil exported in January 2001. Since
then the refinery, has earned the reputation as a reliable player in the international trade,
by virtue of superior product quality and customer service. Moreover, the Fuel Oil has
been benchmarked in the Singapore and Dubai Fuel Oil markets.
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Kochi Refinery is situated in Kochi, the most happening city in Kerala that is rightly
called Gods own country. The refinery has a unique bond with its environment which is
evident in the green blanket so carefully nourished right around it. The refinery has been
blessed with a fine topography and the entire complex, spreading across over thousand
two hundred acres has been so constructed as to blend naturally with it. Upcoming
expansions and developments would also adhere to this philosophy of blending with
nature. The most recent addition to the refinery architecture is the rainwater harvesting
pond and eco-park that has been converted to a must-see spot with sprawling landscaped
lawns and thatched canopies for conferences and get-togethers. Year after year the
refinery has been bagging accolades for its commitment to the environment; for the all-
round care for the environment, the judicious storage, use and reuse of water, the
efficiency in managing solid wastes and effluents and the care taken to keep the
atmosphere clean.
The recent achievement of 24 million accident free man-hours stands testimony to the
fact that the prime focus of Kochi Refinery is on safety in everything we do. From
training to retraining, and adhering to international standards in safety practices, both,
offsite and onsite, Kochi Refinery has taken it as a mission to make safe living and
working a natural mantra of its employees, contract workers, customers and the general
public. Several awareness programmes have been successfully conducted to this effect
with the results for all to see.
As a socially responsible corporate citizen, the community welfare initiatives of the
refinery concentrate on developing the weaker sections of society, particularly, the
scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and people below the poverty line in important
sectors like health, education, housing and women empowerment.
Thus, apart from maintaining its world class standards in operational excellence, the
singular objective of Kochi Refinery is to uphold the BPCL vision of energizing lives by
continued excellence in all round performance with new ideas, added vigor and sustained
commitment to its social, cultural, organizational and natural environment.
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CHAPTER 2
Units and Products
The different units in the refinery are considered a part of manufacturing department, and
are:
1. Crude Distillation Unit (CDU 1)
2. Crude Distillation Unit (CDU 2)
3. Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU)
4. Diesel Hydro Desulphurization Unit (DHDS)

1. Crude Distillation Unit (CDU 1)
The design of CDU-1 is a primary unit and mainly meant for preventing
LPG components which was going to fuel gas header along with the crude
column overhead gas. Other features include optimization of heat recovery
system, qualitative improvement of products from the crude atmospheric column
and increase in crude output.
The crude after desalting process is heated to a required temperature in the
heater and is fed to the prefractioner. The overhead product obtained is the
naphtha. It is fed to LPG recovery unit in naphtha stabilizer; light naphtha from
the crude prefractioner contains lighter components such as LPG and fuel gas.
This naphtha as such cannot be routed to store due to its high vapour pressure.
The naphtha is stabilized by separating out and recovering the LPG component in
the LPG recovery unit.

The preheated crude from the prefractioner column bottom is sent to crude
column after being heated in the crude preheat train in the crude change heater for
further distillation process. The distilled products are drawn from the different
sections of the columns depending upon their boiling range. Heavy naphtha, kero-
1, kero-2 and diesel are the side products. The remaining portion of the crude is
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drawn from the column bottom and reduced crude oil (RCO) are routed to FCCU
block for further separation.


2. Crude Distillation Unit (CDU 2)
The installed capacity of CDU-2 is MMTPA. The plant is designed to
process 362.20 TPH of BH crude with light ends at 2.2 wt.% or Arabian mix
crude. Crude from the storage is pumped through a feed preheat train and
preheated to 135 C. Stripped water from the sour water strips unit is injected into
the crude and the mixed crude is sent to desalter for removing salts. A high
voltage electric field in the desalter brakes the emulsion and the brine water is
separated.
The desalted crude is pumped through another preheat exchanger and then
split into two streams for further preheating in the second and third chains of
preheat train. The preheat crude is finally heated in the charge furnace to 360C
and introduced into the flash zone of the atmospheric column.
The atmospheric column overhead vapours are condensed and received in
an accumulator and over heat stream is sent to naphtha stabilizer. A small quality
of fuel gas is generated which is burned off in the crude heater.
Heavy Gas Oil (HGO), light gas oil (LGO), kerosene and heavy naphtha
are withdrawn as side streams and are stream stripped in stripper columns. Heavy
naphtha is cooled and routed to gas oil stream. Provision is also given to route
heavy naphtha along with stabilized naphtha. Kerosene after stream stripping is
cooled and routed to storage.
HGO, LGO streams are mixed after cooling and the gas oil streams is
further cooled and it is routed to storage and vacuum diesel from VDU joins gas
oil at battery limit. Provision is given to blend kerosene and LVGO also with gas
oil. Gas oil along with other blend streams goes to the diesel pool as combined
diesel stream.
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RCO from the crude column bottom is sent to VDU. Apart from top reflex
cooling and condensation of vapours at various stages of the column is achieved
by means of the pump around streams of kerosene, LGO and HGO. The heat
content of the pump around streams are mostly recovered in crude preheat trains.
LGO is used as heating medium for stabilizer reboiler.

3. Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU)
The FCCU was commissioned in 1985 with the design capacity of 1
MMTPA. Feed preparation unit (FPU) is a main unit in the FCCU block. The
purpose of the feed preparation unit is to make feed of required quality to be
proposed in FCCU. In this unit RCO is distilled under vacuum into four different
cuts namely vacuum diesel oil (VDO), Light vacuum gas oil (LVGO), heavy
vacuum gas oil (HVGO) and vacuum residence. The VDO cut is normally routed
to diesel pool. LVGO and HVGO combined having boiler range approximately
between 360C and 555C is the feed of FCCU
By maintaining the endpoint VGO below 550C, the metal content like Ni,
Vanadium etc. and carbon residue are reduced to an acceptable level. The metals
if present in VGO are poisons to the FCC catalysts. FCCU converts VGO into
higher value products such as LPG, gasoline, and diesel by cracking of heavier
hydrocarbon molecules of VGO to lighter components. Silica-alumina catalyst in
powder form is used for promoting the cracking reactions. Reaction takes place at
higher temperature and at pressure about atmospheric pressure

During cracking, heavy hydrocarbon molecule of VGO are converted to
lower molecular weight components such as LPG, gasoline etc., coke is formed as
side product. The entire coke formed is deposited on the catalyst surface, using
exothermic reaction and regenerate the catalyst H2S
Present in the LPG is removed by absorbing di-ethanol amine in an absorption
column in the amine unit.

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4. Diesel Hydro Desulphurization Unit (DHDS)
DHDS is designed to de-sulphurise the diesel blend stock and reduce the
sulphur content less than 0.05 wt. %. This is achieved by passing a pre heated
diesel steam along with hydrogen over two reactors in series containing beds of
Nickel-Molybdenum catalyst. Any unsaturated hydrogen in the feed stock also get
saturated which helps in improving the quality of diesel.
The sulphur recovery converts and separate H
2
S contained in the sour gas
and until and amine regeneration unit in the form of stripping units function is to
treat sour water generated from DHDS units.

List of Process, Flow Control & Equipment
1. Atmospheric Section
Feed and Crude Preheat Train I A/B
Desalter
Crude Preheat Train II A/B
Prefractionator
Crude Preheat Train III A/B
Atmospheric heater & Balancing Atmospheric heater
Fuel System for Atmospheric heaters
Combustion Air System
Atmospheric Distillation Column
Atmospheric Column Overhead Circuit
Heavy Naphtha Section
Kerosene & Circulating Reflux Section
Light Gas Oil & Circulating Reflux Section
Heavy Gas Oil & Circulating Reflux Section
Bottom Stripping Section
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Heavy Naphtha Product Circuit
Kerosene Product Circuit (ATF/MTO)
LGO Product Circuit
HGO Product Circuit
Atmospheric Overhead Naphtha Caustic Wash
ATF Caustic Wash

2. Vacuum Section
Vacuum Heater
Air Preheating Circuit
Vacuum Column
Vacuum Column Overhead Circuit
Vacuum Diesel Circuit
LGO Circuit
HGO Circuit
Slop distillation
Vacuum residue circuit
Water System
Steam Generation System
Chemical Injection facility
Demulsifier Injection

PRODUCTS
The 150,000 barrels per day Kochi Refinery is a fuel based refinery producing all
petroleum fuel products such as:
Liquefied Petroleum Gas(LPG) and Superior Kerosene Oil (SKO) for households
and industrial uses
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Motor Spirit (MS/Petrol) and Hi-Speed Diesel (HSD) for automobiles
Naphtha, the major raw material for fertilizer and petrochemical industries
Furnace Oil (FO), Light Diesel Oil (LDO) and Low Sulphur Heavy Stock (LSHS)
as fuel for industries.
Aviation Turbine Fuel(ATF) for aircrafts

SPECIALITY PRODUCTS
Kochi Refinery makes Specialty products for domestic markets viz., Benzene, Toluene,
White Spirit, Poly Isobutene and sulfur.
Kochi Refinery offers supplies of any grade Fuel Oil (both 180 cst and 380 cst) and Low
Aromatic Naphtha (high Paraffinic) to the international market.
KR also produces specialty grade bitumen products like Natural Rubber Modified
Bitumen, Bitumen Emulsion etc.
The Fuel Oil has been bench marked in the Singapore and Dubai Fuel Oil markets.
EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS
Natural Rubber Modified Bitumen: It is one of KRs premier products that
revolutionized road development. NRMB has been on a fast track since its introduction in
1999. This NMRB is a product was developed by the Engineers of R&D department of
Kochi Refinery as in-house innovative product. This was tested and was lauded by IIT,
Delhi and Ministry of Petroleum & Natural gas with awards and appreciations.
Bitumen, which is derived from petroleum is a critical component in road building.
Polymer added to Bitumen enhances both quality and longevity of roads.KR in
association with leading research institutes made an in-depth study on feasibility of using
natural rubber available in abundance in Kerala, to develop the premier product, NRMB.
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NRMB has improved many roads throughout the region. Its success track is evident from
the smooth Seaport-Airport road in Cochin. NRMB is a superior mix of bitumen and
natural rubber latex.
Improved skid resistance and more service life are the booster effects along with prime
factors like save fuel, reduces traffic pollution and atmospheric pollution. All this sums
up to reduced road maintenance cost.
The most important property of Rubberized Bitumen is its elastic recovery. The elastic
nature prevents rutting (permanent deformation due to the load over the road)
BITUMEN EMULSION
This eco-friendly product was launched by the refinery in June 2005.Bitumen in different
grades is used for road maintenance and construction. Bitumen requires heating for the
temporary reduction of viscosity. With Bitumen emulsion, which is a ready to use
product, there is no need for the preliminary hearing. Reduced road maintenance cost,
energy savers, and economics, longer service life for roads and reduced atmospheric
pollution during road laying /maintenance are some of the advantages of Bitumen
emulsion.
DIESEL ADDITIVE
After years of pure and applied research, KR hit upon the formula for high performing
Diesel. KRs Diesel Additive is an indigenous product successfully tested in laboratories
both locally and globally. Trials at various stages in various types of vehicles have also
been completed. When used along with diesel in a specified proportion, it improves the
combustion inside engine cylinder, thereby reducing harmful exhaust emissions and
assuring better fuel efficiency.
Diesel Additive is suitable for all engines, which use diesel as fuel like automobiles,
boats. It helps enhancing the engine efficiency through faster rate of heat release. It also
keeps the cylinder peak pressure to the optimum level, which means the system requires
less energy to maintain relatively low pressure and thus allowing the engine to run
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smoothly. Immediate results on these changes in combustion pattern are reduction in
engine noise level and smooth drive. In the long run, this effect improves engine life and
longer change period of engine oil.
Diesel Additive is a petroleum product, which burns out completely along with diesel
fuel and hence will not foul the injector nozzle tip by clogging even at high pressure.
INNOVATIONS
BPCL Kochi Refinery is an ever growing organization which has its own R & D
department, wherein knowledgeable and experienced engineers and experts are untiringly
working on innovative processes, loss control measures, and damage control measures,
and improved quality products, environmental-friendly fuels continuously and constantly.
India has already established a respectable position amongst Petroleum processing
industries globally and will be improving its position in coming years, as assured by the
Petroleum experts of BPCL Kochi Refinery.










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CHAPTER 3
CDU-2 Shutdown A Study of Column Internals &
Equipment
As part of the shutdown operations, the internals of a few columns and equipment
like Atmospheric Column, Naphtha Splitter Unit-2 (NSU-2), DHDS Stripper, Desalter
and heat exchangers were studied. A brief overview of the study has been given below.

Column Internals:
Trays and Plates
Common types of tray designs are given below:
Bubble cap trays
A bubble cap tray has riser or chimney fitted over each hole, and a cap that covers
the riser. The cap is mounted so that there is a space between riser and cap to allow the
passage of vapor. Vapor rises through the chimney and is directed downward by the cap,
finally discharging through slots in the cap, and finally bubbling through the liquid the
liquid on the tray.
Valve tray
In valve trays, perforations are covered by lift-able caps. Vapor flows lifts the
caps, thus self-creating a flow area for the passage of vapor. The lifting cap directs the
vapor to flow horizontally into the liquid, thus providing better mixing than is possible in
sieve trays.
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Sieve trays
Sieve trays are simply metal plates with holes in them. Vapor passes straight
upward through the liquid on the plate. The arrangement, number and size of the holes
are design parameters.

Because of their efficiency, wide operating range, ease of maintenance and cost factors,
sieve and valve trays have replaced bubble cap trays in many applications.

During the internal checking, valve trays were found to be used in NSU-2 and
Atmospheric Distillation Column.

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Liquid and Vapor Flow in a Tray Column
The figure below show the direction of vapor and liquid flow across a tray, and across a
column.


Each tray has two conduits, one on each side, called downcomers. Liquid falls through
the downcomers by gravity from one tray to the below it. The flow across each plate is
shown in the above diagram.
A wier on the tray ensures that there is always some liquid (holdup) on the tray and is
designed such that the holdup is at a suitable height.
Being lighter, vapor flows up the column and is forced to pass through the liquid, via the
openings on each tray. The area allowed for the passage of vapor on each tray is called
the active tray area.
As the hotter vapor passes through the liquid on the tray above, it transfers heat to the
liquid. In doing so, some of the vapor condenses adding to the liquid on the tray. The
condensate, however, is richer in the less volatile components than is in the vapor.
Additionally, because of the heat input from the vapor, the liquid on tray boils, generating
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more vapor. This vapor, which moves up to the next tray in the column, is richer in the
more volatile components. This continuous contacting between vapor and liquid occurs
on each tray in the column and brings about the separation between low boiling point
components and those with higher boiling points.
Tray Designs
A tray essentially acts as a mini-column, each accomplishing a fraction of the separation
of the separation task. From this we can deduce that the more the trays there are, the
better the degree of separation and that overall separation efficiency will depend
significantly on the design of the tray. Trays are designed to maximize the vapor-liquid
contact by considering the
Liquid distribution and
Vapour distribution
on the tray. This is because better vapor-liquid contact means better separation at each
tray, translating to better column performance. Less trays will be required to achieve the
same degree of separation. Attendant benefits include less energy usage and lower
construction costs.



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Naphtha Splitter Unit (NSU)
The naphtha stream obtained from the distillation tower is unstable naphtha, i.e., naphtha
along with more volatile components mainly LPG. To stabilize the naphtha stream,
these gaseous components have to be removed. This operation is called naphtha
stabilization.
After stabilization, the naphtha stream is split into three streams based on their boiling
ranges. This, again, is a distillation operation.
The naphtha stream will consist of compounds from five carbon atom chain to those that
boil at around 140-160 C. The three streams obtained will be:
o Top product 5-60 C
o Side product 60-110 C
o Bottom product 110-160 C
The side stream and top product can be used for petrol blending. However, it will have a
low octane number (around 65). If the pour point of the bottom product is less than 10 C,
it can be used for diesel blending.
Another option is to redirect the bottom product to FCCU to make higher octane number
naphtha.
Desalter
Desalter is used to eliminate salts, water, sediment, and suspended solid. We need to have
desalter for some reasons, as follows:
1. To avoid corrosion (effected by salts) it is usually main target of desalter
operation.
2. To avoid fouling and coking (effected by salts, sediment, and suspended solid).
3. To avoid erosion inside piping/equipment (effected by sediment).
4. To avoid high energy consumption (effected by salts, water, sediment, and
suspended solid).
5. To avoid catalyst poisoning (effected by salts).
6. To avoid high cost of chemical used for handling fouling and corrosion (effected
by salts, sediment, and suspended solid).
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Factors influencing emulsion stability of liquid inside of the desalter:
Crude density
Crude inlet temperature
Electrical grid of desalter
Wash water injection rate
pH of Wash water injection
Pressure drop (dP) of mixing valve
Interface level of desalter
Desalter pressure
Demulsifier

Heat Exchangers
Most heat exchangers used in the refinery are Shell and Tube type. Often, multiple shell
and tube heat exchangers, referred to as heating trains are used to bring about the required
heating effect.
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For maximum heat recovery, the heating trains are designed to use the feed as the cooling
fluid and a product stream as the heating fluid. For instance, in the crude distillation units,
the feed is preheated in the pre-heat trains by the diesel stream exiting from the
fractionator. Since heat exchangers handle high temperature, ample provision for thermal
expansion must be provided. Hence, most shell and tube heat exchangers are designed as
floating head exchangers.










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Conclusion
The training period at the refinery has helped me understand the foundation
and functioning of the organization. Through the course of my training, I
managed to improve my knowledge and understanding of the concepts and
theories which were only subjective to me till date. I have also been
educated about the shutdown procedures and was given an opportunity to
study internals of a few columns and equipment.
I am happy to conclude that this training has given me the much needed
exposure to the petroleum industry and hope it holds me in good stead for
the future.

Avinash K.V.








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Bibliography:
Operating Manual for CDU-II
Petroleum Refining Process - Meyers
Factstaff.cbu.edu