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Preface

Petroleum refining is a complex industry that world-wide produces more than $10 billion worth of refined products. Improvements in the design and operation of these facilities can deliver large economic value for refiners. Furthermore, economic, regulatory and environmental concerns impose significant pressure on refiners to provide safe working conditions and at the same time optimize the refining process. Refiners have considered alternative processing units and feedstocks by investing in new technologies.

The United States, Europe and countries else-where in the world are embarking on full electrification of automobiles within the next couple of decades. Furthermore, the current pandemic of the coronavirus with lock downs in many countries has restricted the movement of people, less use of aviation fuel and motor gasoline. This has resulted in the barrel of crude being sold at $42.0 per barrel presenting problems to oil producers and refiners. The venture of electrification still poses inherent problems of resolving rechargeable batteries and fuel cells and providing charging stations along various highways and routes. Oil and natural-gas will for the foreseeable future form an important part of everyday life. Their availability has changed the whole economy of the world by providing basic needs for mankind in the form of fuel, petrochemicals and feedstocks for fertilizer plants and energy for the power sector.

Presently, the world economy runs on oil and natural gas, and the processing of these feedstocks for producing fuels, and value-added products has become an essential activity in modern society. The availability of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has enhanced the environment, and recent development in the technology of natural gas to liquids (GTL) has further improved the availability of fuel to transportation and other sectors.

The complex processing of petroleum refining has created a need for environmental, health, and safety management procedures and safe work practices. These procedures are established to ensure compliance with applicable regulations and standards such as hazard communications (PHA, HAZOP, HAZAN, Inherently Safer Design, MoC, and so on), emissions, Waste Management pollution that includes volatile organic compounds (VOC), carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides (SO_x), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), particulates, ammonia (NH₃), hydrogen sulfide (H₂S), and toxic organic compounds) and waste minimization. These pollutants are often discharged as air emissions, wastewater or solid wastes. Furthermore, concern over issues such as the depletion of the ozone layer that results in global warming is increasingly having a significant impact on Earth’s nature and mankind, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is known to be the major culprit of global warming. Other emissions such as H₂S, NO_x, and SO_x from petroleum refining have adversely impacted the environment, and agencies such as Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Health and Safety Executive (U.K. HSE) have imposed limits on the emissions of these compounds upon refiners.

Flaring has become more complicated and concerns about its efficiency have been increasing and discussed by experts. The OSHA, EPA and HSE have imposed tighter regulations on both safety and emission control, which have resulted in higher levels of involvement in safety, pollution, emissions and so on.

Petroleum refining is one of the important sectors of the world economy, and it’s playing a crucial and pivotal role in industrialization, urbanization, and meeting the basic needs of mankind by supplying energy for industrial and domestic transportation, feedstock for petrochemical products as plastics, polymers, agrochemicals, paints, and so on. Globally, it processes more materials than any other industry, and with a projected increase in population to around 8.1 billion by 2025, increasing demand for fuels, electricity and various consumer products made from the petrochemical route is expected via the petroleum and refining process.

Petroleum Refining Design and Applications Handbook, Volume Two, is a continuation of volume one; comprising of five chapters, a glossary of petroleum and technical terminology, appendices, Excel spreadsheet programs, computer developed programs, UniSim – Design simulation software excises, cases studies and a Conversion Table, interspersed with Process Safety Incidents. Chapter 13 provides the rules of thumb of process equipment and the heuristics for designers, which can be applied by engineers who are substantially familiar with the topics. However, such rules should be of value for approximate design and cost estimation, and should not provide the inexperienced engineer with a perspective, and a foundation where detailed and computer-aided results can be determined; Chapter 14 provides organization structure and design scope and roles of the process design engineer. The functions of these roles are used in various chapters of volumes 2, 3 and 4 of these volume series. Other pertinent functions in this chapter are flowsheets involving a block diagram, process flow (PFD) diagram and process and instrumentation (P & ID) diagram, computer-aided flowsheet design, symbols and basic engineering and front-end engineering design (FEED). Chapter 15 is on fluid flow in process piping, showing the scope, the basis for incompressible and compressible fluids, oil systems piping, pressure drop in process lines, including fittings, resistance of valves, water hammer, two-phase liquid and gas flows in process piping; application of UniSim design PIPESYS, mitigating pipeline hazards, pipeline safety and safety incidents related with pipework and materials of construction and design for safer piping. This chapter further provides the root causes, findings and recommendations of these incidents in the refinery and chemical plants ensuring that lessons are learned and thus preventing further deaths; Chapter 16 reviews pumping of liquids, centrifugal pump selection, hydraulic characteristics for centrifugal pumps, net positive suction head and requirement for liquid’s saturation with dissolved gases, pump cavitation, affinity laws, centrifugal pump efficiency, rotary pumps, reciprocating pumps, screw pumps, operating philosophy, troubleshooting and checklist for centrifugal pumps, pumps reliability, root causes of pump failures and their impact, cases studies of pump failures in the refinery, their root causes, findings and recommendations. Process safety management involving mechanical integrity and management of change (MOC). Chapter 17 describes compression equipment with specification guides, general application guide, and performance consideration, hydrogen use in the refinery, and UniSim design case studies. The chapter further describes various compressor types, advantages and disadvantages, probably causes and troubleshooting as well as process safety incidents involving compressors’ malfunctions. Furthermore, the chapter describes integrally geared compressors that have wide application in carbon dioxide (CO2) service for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) with an added benefit to the environment, as nearly all of the injected CO2 is permanently sequestrated in the depleted oil fields long after these fields have ceased operation. Appendix D provides construction commissioning start-up checklists of rotary equipment such as pumps, compressors, and other equipment such as blowers, fans and mixers.