A time for grass roots thinking ?

Within the past year or two spiking crude prices and surging refinery margins have led to overheated talk about increasing refinery capacity worldwide. Plans for construction of as many 60 grass roots refineries have been discussed. But stretched out lead times for major equipment and inflated prices, as well as declining margins and a final realization that there is not enough crude to meet demand, have brought sober thinking to the table. Recent societal changes in India and ...

All about excellence in the energy and chemical industry

KBC exists to help you achieve and sustain excellent operational performance, through the actions of our people, fused with the application of our digitalization technology and best practices, powered by the Cloud.Better decisions - faster, Flawless execution - every time and  Superior results - sustained. Deliver value: Performance assurance Organizations that perform at their best are able to adjust to changing dynamics without compromising competitiveness. KBC ...

Diagnostics™ Leak Study Optimise Ammonia Synthesis Loop

How can Tracerco help optimise performance in my ammonia synthesis loop? If you are trying to determine why the ammonia synthesis line is not performing as efficiently as expected, a series of tracer tests can be carried out for troubleshooting the different processing loops of ammonia synthesis and converter lines. Tracerco Diagnostics™ Leak studies have proven invaluable in identifying potential areas or locations of leakage within an ammonia synthesis processing loop, converter, ...

Digitalization manifesto - Now its time

At KBC we believe in a world where plants operate with: No safety incidents, No unplanned outages, Rigorous adherence to operating plans, Agile response to market changes and plant disturbances, A motivated and informed workforce, A culture of profitability. We call this ‘Excellence’. KBC exists to help its customers in the Energy and Chemical industry realize value through achieving excellence. Digitalization is one of the key strategies a plant can adopt in pursuit ...

Important tray design features that improve column operating reliability

How often does Maintenance personnel open a column during a shutdown and find tray panels fallen without any obvious damage? How about tray valves stuck in the bottoms pump suction? While the initial reaction may be to blame faulty installation where the hardware was not properly tightened, the answer often lies in the design of the tray. Reliable column designs need to produce on-spec products at the design capacity, while operating with energy usage at a minimum. For this to ...

Nasty stuff

Heavy crudes are here to stay. As longs as oil prices remain high, Canadian, Venezuelan, Deep Water Gulf of Mexico, Mexican and other low API gravity crude oils will play an ever more important role in supplying world refineries. And prices promise to remain high because gainsayers notwithstanding, Hubbert was right. A big question is how to handle best these nasty crudes? Do you revamp existing units or invest in new capacity? With refineries now running flat out, the balance ...

Opportunity knocks

A group of interesting articles* deals with opportunity crudes, a mixed breed that includes very heavy, sour and high total acid number types as well as those with unexceptional naphthenic acid content but which do have significant concentrations of aliphatic acids or possess the ability to generate them during processing. They all sell at substantial discounts that give refiners who can process them the opportunity to reap higher profits. Hence their name. Note that phrase ...

Processing heavy Canadian crude

Reducing crude oil cost is the major incentive driving crude and vacuum unit projects to handle heavy Canadian crudes. But such crudes–Albian Heavy, Christina Lake, MacKay River and others derived from oil sands–today present refiners with a unique set of problems not just because of extra-low API gravity, but also because of asphaltenes, vanadium and nickel, high solids content and extremely high viscosity vacuum residues. To process such crudes reliably over a 4-5 ...

Profiler™ TGA

The Profiler™ TGA provides extremely reliable liquid level and interface measurements for alkylation units and other harsh service environments. The Profiler™ TGA is specifically designed to measure the vertical distribution of multiple interfaces in real time and at high resolution. Key features - Extremely reliable - Low maintenance Benefits - Reduces possibility of acid runaway - Increases production throughput - Optimises acid recirculation - Provides real-time ...

Tracerco Heat Exchanger Leak Test

What does a Tracerco leak test do? Tracerco has a long history of performing online and offline heat exchanger leak testing using chemicals, radioisotopes and helium tracers. A Tracerco Diagnostics™ Leak study provides real-time data on the exchanger, and eliminates the need for the equipment to be offline or the unit to be shut down while searching for the leak. It also reduces maintenance costs, as it identifies the individual leaking exchanger in a ‘bank’ or group of ...

Why do many crude/vacuum units perform poorly?

In many cases it’s because the original design was based more on virtual than actual reality. There is no question: computer simulations have a key role to play but it’s equally true that process design needs to be based on what works in the field and not on the ideals of the process simulator. Nor should the designer simply base the equipment selection on vendor-stated performance. The design engineer needs to have actual refinery process engineering experience, not ...