Corrosion issues in an existing RFCC unit of a refinery
Corrosion issues in an existing RFCC unit of a refinery
(OP)
Hi,
As part of an ongoing exercise in the company to debottleneck a 70 KBPD existing refinery one of the issues that needed a resolution was the corrosion issues in an RFCC unit in order to debottleneck it. Following below are options to debottleneck the same, which under discussion right now:
a) Explore possibility of converting this RFCC to an FCC
b) Blend the feed with Diesel / Middle Distillates, sourced from other units in the refinery with the exception of sourcing from units producing cracked stocks viz. SDA, Visbreaker etc., to dilute the feed to achieve a lower Sulphur content in the RFCC feed
The feed for this RFCC is the Atmospheric Residue (AR) from the CDU without any Hydrotrearting. The crude feed to the CDU is sour with 3.1 wt % Sulphur. The untreated AR has a Sulphur content of 2.9 wt % and a CCR spec. of 5.7 wt. %.
Of course the licensor will be involved once the time comes for that but before that happens I request your opinion on the above i.e whether the options considered for the debottlenecking to address the corrosion issues are truly feasible.
Many thanks in advance :)
As part of an ongoing exercise in the company to debottleneck a 70 KBPD existing refinery one of the issues that needed a resolution was the corrosion issues in an RFCC unit in order to debottleneck it. Following below are options to debottleneck the same, which under discussion right now:
a) Explore possibility of converting this RFCC to an FCC
b) Blend the feed with Diesel / Middle Distillates, sourced from other units in the refinery with the exception of sourcing from units producing cracked stocks viz. SDA, Visbreaker etc., to dilute the feed to achieve a lower Sulphur content in the RFCC feed
The feed for this RFCC is the Atmospheric Residue (AR) from the CDU without any Hydrotrearting. The crude feed to the CDU is sour with 3.1 wt % Sulphur. The untreated AR has a Sulphur content of 2.9 wt % and a CCR spec. of 5.7 wt. %.
Of course the licensor will be involved once the time comes for that but before that happens I request your opinion on the above i.e whether the options considered for the debottlenecking to address the corrosion issues are truly feasible.
Many thanks in advance :)





RE: Corrosion issues in an existing RFCC unit of a refinery
RE: Corrosion issues in an existing RFCC unit of a refinery
However at this stage we are deliberating on the said options from a future technical and commercial point of view since its known that the original design intent Sulphur content and the CCR have increased significantly since the unit's installation about 6 years ago. Hence that's why the options suggested need to be decided based on their "do-ability" first and then decide on the technical and commercial implications.
RE: Corrosion issues in an existing RFCC unit of a refinery
what is your question ?
what type of corrosion was experienced ? where ?
operating conditions are essential for evaluation of corrosion, what are the operating conditions ?
generalized corrosion by high temperature sulfidation, if it is confirmed to be the actual corrosion mechanism encountered, depends mainly on temperature, sulfur content having less influence. what is the temperature ?
RE: Corrosion issues in an existing RFCC unit of a refinery