Equipment
Mitigate fouling in crude unit overhead—Part 2
Up to 50% of the refinery’s entire corrosion expense may occur in the crude unit. The root causes of the fouling and corrosion issues are often linked to the basic unit configuration choices, as ..
Improve solvent recovery in wax production
The solvent-recovery section of the deoiling unit for wax production consumes substantial energy. In this study, the effects of operating conditions (pressure), energy consumption and cost, and proces..
Update temperature control for a Claus unit with neural networks
The Natref oil refinery in Sasolburg, South Africa, had experienced refractory problems in the sulfur recovery unit’s (SRU’s) combustion chamber since startup (Fig. 1). Even though the SRU w..
HP Reliability: Maintain proficiency in root-cause-failure analysis
Earlier in the year, the author attended a series of client and organizers’ presentations at the 2013 TapRooT Summit in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. TapRooT is a structured failure analysis and trouble..
HP Integration Strategies: Operational integrity management at Statoil
Asset-intensive industries continue to suffer from unplanned downtime, failure to meet planned production rates, and too many safety and environmental incidents. Until companies can manage and mitigat..
HP Automation Safety: MTTR: Reality vs. calculation
Many reliability engineers trained before IEC 61508 know the acronym MTTR as “mean time to repair.” I certainly learned that definition. Naturally, I think of the time it takes to repair som..
Case history: Sasol’s optimization of the catalyst regeneration process for C5 isomerization
Advanced process control (APC) offers solutions to use full catalyst regenerator capacity safely and to generate substantial benefits. Significant yield increases and operating cost reductions can be ..
Improve your choice of process control algorithms
This algorithm, when properly tuned, can greatly reduce the quantity of off-spec material made from a process upset. It can be the largest contributor to the benefits captured by improved process control.
Improve inline blending with advanced analyzers
Due to tough economic conditions, refiners are pressed to improve profitability. There is greater pressure to optimize gasoline and diesel blending. What are the options to improve processing of trans..
HP Reliability: Why users must update design contractors’ understanding
In early 2012, a rotating equipment engineer was involved in a machinery quality assessment (MQA).1 Located halfway around the globe, this engineer’s new job was to oversee the engineering, procu..
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