(81b) Taking Some of the Challenge out of Challenge Crudes

Refiners are looking for methods to assess the potential impacts of challenge or opportunity crudes besides the historical ?wait and see? approach. Crude unit reliability is more critical as turnaround cycle are extended, hence the need to project the affects that crude might have on equipment and unit runlength. This paper will address a methodology that can be used to identify some of the potential processing issues associated with running new crudes in a refinery. Several examples will be discussed.