(72b) Tracking the Impact of Operating Condition Changes across Refinery Units

Given the degree of interconnection between different refinery processes, a viable way to improve product quality and refinery conversion unit efficiency is to adjust process parameters of separation processes, petrochemical plants, or other refinery conversion units that feed a given downstream conversion process.

This work shows the simulation of different types of refinery processes to study the impact of changes in operating conditions and how the effects propagate across other refinery units. Models were developed with different thermodynamic methods, definition of species set, and rigorous kinetic models to account for the chemical and physical phenomena occurring in each unit.

Three case studies will be presented:

• Changes in straight-run diesel cut point from a crude column and the effect on the hydrotreating unit.
• The impact of recycle H₂S from the amine scrubber on hydrotreater reactor performance and separation.
• The influence of changes in butane isomerization and light paraffin dehydrogenation as feed to the alkylation process.