An atmospheric crude tower revamp

I
n 2002, CITGO Petroleum Corporation
revamped an atmospheric crude tower result-
ing in improved atmospheric distillate yield
and quality, while permitting the atmospheric
crude heater outlet temperature to be lowered by
approximately 10F, with a simultaneous reduc-
tion in the vacuum unit feed rate. These results
were achieved even though the crude became
heavier as more heavy sour crudes were proc-
essed. Typically, atmospheric and vacuum tower
distillate cut points decrease when crude blends
get heavier, because they are more diffcult to
vapourise. Over the next ten years, US refners
will process higher percentages of heavier sour
crude oils due to increasing output from the
Orinoco River basin bitumen upgraders in
Venezuela, as well as increased production from
western Canada and the tar sands in northern
Alberta.
When processing heavy crude oils, the atmos-
pheric crude column internals perform a
signifcant role in the overall unit performance.
While fractionation improvements may be visibly
apparent, other less obvious effects play a
critical role too. Since improved atmos-
pheric column stripping allows a reduction
in the crude heater outlet temperature at
a constant atmospheric distillate yield and
lowers the quantity of 650F minus mate-
rial in the vacuum tower feed, overall
crude unit performance is optimised.
Better stripping increases the recovery of
diesel from the FCC feed and allows a
lower vacuum column operating pressure
due to a lower ejector system load. A lower
vacuum column fash zone pressure can
result in a higher heavy vacuum gas oil
(HVGO) true-boiling point (TBP) cut
Daryl W Hanson and Tony Barletta Process Consulting Services
John V Bernickas CITGO Petroleum Corporation
point, even when processing heavier crudes.
Conversely, poor stripping effciency requires a
higher heater outlet temperature to achieve the
same atmospheric distillate yield, and lighter
components feeding the vacuum unit can load
the vacuum column ejectors. CITGO was able to
reduce the crude heater outlet temperature by
approximately 10F while improving the atmos-
pheric gas oil (AGO) product yield. Figure 1
shows how the vacuum tower fash zone pressure
was reduced from 2428 mmHg to approxi-
mately 20 mmHg following the revamp.
Processing heavy crudes
The CITGO refnery processes a relatively high
percentage of heavy crude oil, containing high
quantities of sulphur, naphthenic acid, vanadium
and microcarbon residue (MCR). As the crude
blend gets heavier, it becomes increasingly diff-
cult to vapourise the oil in the atmospheric and
vacuum heaters. Without any operating variable
changes, process fow scheme modifcations or
improved equipment design, the atmospheric
www.digitalrening.com/article/1000093 PTQ Q3 2005 1
Overall gas oil yield was maintained with heavier crudes due to a crude tower
revamp. The revamp allowed for a crude heater outlet temperature reduction
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6
12
18
24
30
36
42
48
54
60
0
Figure 1 Vacuum tower ash zone pressure, mmHg absolute
tower bottoms (ATB) and vacuum tower bottoms
(VTB) TBP cut points will always decrease as
crudes get heavier. Table 1 summarises the
changes needed in the crude and vacuum units
to maintain or improve the atmospheric and
vacuum distillate cut points as the feed gets
heavier.
Heavy crude blends contain fewer atmospheric
distillates and, in the case of very heavy
Venezuelan crude oils such as Merey and BCF-17,
ATB yields as high as 70 vol% on the whole crude
are common. Achieving high diesel and AGO
product recoveries becomes increasingly diffcult.
1

Heavy crude oils contain more vacuum distillates,
so it is often necessary to increase the AGO prod-
uct cut point to stay within the existing vacuum
column diameter limit. As the AGO product TBP
cut point increases, the vacuum unit feed gets
heavier, resulting in a higher VTB yield unless the
vacuum heater temperature is increased, the pres-
sure decreased or the effciency of the stripping
section is improved in the VTB.
Most refners cannot increase the vacuum
heater outlet temperature because heater run
2 PTQ Q3 2005 www.digitalrening.com/article/1000093
lengths are reduced due to the high rate of coke
formation. Also, the amount of cracked gas
produced increases, raising the vacuum tower
operating pressure. Although CITGO was able to
reduce the vacuum tower operating pressure,
many refners are already operating at the capac-
ity factor limit above where high VTB
entrainment occurs. When processing heavy
crude oils, the AGO product cut point should be
optimised so that the HVGO yield is maximised
within the vacuum tower limits, thereby maxim-
ising the HVGO product cut point.
Maintaining the HVGO cut point is a signif-
cant challenge when crude blends become
heavier, as refners may lose 2080F in the
HVGO product cut point. It is not uncommon
for a crude oil 3 API gravity decrease to result
in a 50F reduction in the HVGO cut point.
Maintaining the cut point requires a combina-
tion of lower operating pressure, higher heater
outlet temperature, lower fash zone oil partial
pressure (more heater coil steam) or improved
VTB stripping.
Atmospheric tower
The CITGO atmospheric tower has three pumpa-
rounds and several fractionation sections, as
shown in Table 2. Prior to the upgrade, all tower
sections were trayed, and pumparounds were
withdrawn from active trays. The new draw tray
designs were optimised to minimise leakage,
which reduced problems associated with pumpa-
round and product draws. The AGO product
draw and wash zone were also redesigned and
the stripping section design optimised.
All of the column internals were revamped too.
The draw sumps on each of the three pumpa-
round draws were modifed by adding true draw
sumps. This aided de-aeration of the downcomer
liquid and reduced problems with withdrawing
pumparound liquid from the column. When
crude unit feed rates are pushed, it is common
to have pumparound draw rate limitations
because of the draw system initial design. Ideally,
collector trays should be used, but the existing
tower external piping confguration prevented
their installation. Adding a proper draw sump
allowed the top pumparound to be maximised to
the pump limit, permitting a higher return
temperature, thereby reducing the potential for
tower tray salt formation.
2
The tray metallurgy was changed to the
Variable Required change in atmospheric &
vacuum tower to maintain cut points
Temperature Higher
Pressure Lower
Flash zone oil partial pressure Lower
Residue stripping efciency Higher
Variable adjustments for processing heavy crude oils
Table 1
Tray numbers Revamped atmospheric tower section
13 Top pumparound
417 Straight-run naphtha/kerosene fractionation
1819 Middle pumparound
2031 Kerosene/diesel fractionation
3233 Lower pumparound
3441 Diesel/AGO fractionation
42 AGO product collector
Packed section AGO wash zone
43 Overash collector
44 Stripping section liquid distributor
4551 Stripping section
Atmospheric crude tower sections
Table 2
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proprietary duplex stainless steel AL6XN,
which is more resistant to chloride corro-
sion. In all the trayed sections above the
fash zone, fxed valve trays were used,
except at the pumparound and product
draw trays. At these locations, moveable
valve trays were used to reduce leakage
through the tray decks, which minimised
draw problems during normal operations
and throughout unit start-ups.
Maintaining diesel recovery from AGO
is diffcult when the crude gets heavier,
because the oil is more diffcult to vapour-
ise and diesel refux rates generally drop.
Maintaining adequate refux typically
requires improved stripping section eff-
ciency. Diesel/AGO fractionation
effciency is a function of the number of
trays and their effciency, as well as the
tower internal refux. In this case, the
number of trays was not changed. Prior
to the revamp, CITGOs diesel/AGO frac-
tionation section had four-pass trays with
very long weir lengths and imbalanced
active areas. The revamped trays used
equal active area designs and reduced
weir length to raise the tray effciency.
Even though heavier crude was proc-
essed, refux rates in this section of the
tower did not drop, as a result of the
stripping section revamp.
The AGO product draw and AGO wash
section were also redesigned to improve the AGO
product quality and optimise the AGO yield,
while minimising the overfash rate.3 A seal-
welded collector tray was installed at the AGO
product draw to its stripper, so that all liquid
was withdrawn from the tower. The wash oil
trays were replaced with packing. The AGO strip-
per draw piping size was increased and a loop
seal installed to ensure that vapour from the
stripper could not fow backwards through the
draw line, limiting product yields. Liquid leaving
the AGO stripper bottoms pumps was split into
wash liquid and AGO product. Wash liquid was
fow controlled at the minimum rate needed to
meet the AGO product colour specifcation. Since
these heavy crude oils contain high levels of
vanadium and MCR, reducing ATB entrainment
into the AGO product improves the quality of the
FCC feed.
Figure 2 shows the AGO product colour before
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and after the revamp. Following start-up, it has
been a yellow green, with the ASTM D 1500
colour consistently being reported as less than
three, which indicates no ATB product entrain-
ment. Prior to the modifcations, the AGO
product colour was normally a dark brown.
Another beneft of the wash section revamp
was a lower feed rate to the vacuum unit. Packing
requires less liquid than trays to remove
entrained ATB from the fash zone vapours. For
effective tray operation, overfash requirements
range from 35 LV% of the crude feed, and may
be higher in some cases. Packing has a high open
area and operates at very low liquid rates while
still removing entrained ATB. Following the
revamp, the crude column has consistently
produced good-quality AGO product at a nomi-
nal 1 LV% metered overfash.
To minimise overfash, the wash section cross-
sectional area was reduced by installing a smaller
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2
3
4
5
7
9
6
8
10
0
LC
41
42
FC
FC
Seal-
welded
collector
Wash
zone
Flash
zone
AGO
product
Figure 2 AGO product ASTM D 1500 colour
Figure 3 Atmospheric tower wash section and AGO stripper
diameter section inside the column, as shown in
Figure 3. By reducing the cross-sectional area
that must be wetted for adequate ATB removal,
the overfash rate is thereby lowered. Wash
liquid is sprayed onto the packing and the rate is
adjusted according to the AGO product colour.
The fux in hot GPM/ft
2
measured at the top and
the bottom of the packed bed is typically 0.80
and 0.25 respectively. Once the wash rate
reaches the minimum fow for the spray nozzles
used, it cannot be reduced further without
collapsing the spray nozzle cone angle, which
would result in dry areas in the packing.
Minimum overfash and optimised stripping
section performance have increased the AGO
product cut point by a nominal 15F on whole
crude. Figure 4 shows the approximate AGO
yield before and after the revamp.
AGO product quality is also dependent on fash
zone performance.
4
A poor fash zone design
causes high ATB entrainment and vapour mald-
istribution into the wash section. In this case, a
360 vapour horn was installed in the fash zone
to facilitate residue de-entrainment and to
provide a proper initial vapour distribution to
the wash zone. Good initial vapour distribution
eliminates any high-velocity areas that do not
allow the packing to remove the entrained ATB.
Atmospheric bottoms stripping section designs
play a vital role in heavy oil processing,
5
so
fundamental design considerations cannot be
ignored. Many atmospheric column stripping
sections have the same diameter as the fash
zone, or the reduced diameter internal cylinders
have been oversized. This leads to low tray eff-
ciency, increased fouling rates and poor
mechanical integrity. Attempts to reduce the tray
active area by installing parallel plates with no
bubbling (hole) area outside the baffes, or using
oversized downcomers, generally causes
higher rates of fouling and always results
in poor effciency.
CITGOs stripping section design uses
a reduced diameter section and seven
optimised design sieve trays to increase
stripping effciency (Figure 5). The origi-
nal 10ft diameter stripping section was
increased to 11.5ft to process the addi-
tional liquid load that had occurred over
the years. Tray spacing was reduced
from the original 24in to accommodate
two additional stripping section trays.
The steam rate is typically limited to
slightly less than 9lb per barrel of ATB
because of tower overhead cooling limi-
tations. Three sieve hole areas were used
to compensate for the varying vapour
4 PTQ Q3 2005 www.digitalrening.com/article/1000093
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V
o
l
u
m
e
,

%

A
G
O
8
10
12
14
16
6
Figure 4 AGO product yield on whole crude
Feed
Increased the
number of trays
from 5 to 7
Stripping
steam
High efficiency,
anti-fouling
design
Figure 5 Design of the atmospheric tower bottoms
stripper
Off-gas
CW
Naphtha
product
Gas oil
product
Gas oil
condenser
CW CW
1st
stage
2nd
stage
3rd
stage
Figure 6 Vacuum tower overhead ejector system
rate. Antifouling features included: an
optimised tray design to maximise weir
liquid loading and to ensure uniform
liquid fow across the tray; sloped outlet
weirs to minimise coke and debris build-
up behind the outlet weir; and properly
sized downcomers to aid the movement
of solids through the downcomer.
Vacuum unit performance
In the vacuum unit, the vapourising of
heavy crude oils requires a high tempera-
ture
6,7
and low pressure when the column
has no stripping section.
8,9
By improving
the effciency of the atmospheric column
stripping section, CITGO was able to
reduce the quantity of light hydrocarbons
in the feed, allowing the ejectors to reduce
the fash zone pressure to approximately
20 mmHg. By eliminating the light hydro-
carbons from the feed, the ejector system
condensable load was reduced, thereby
decreasing the system pressure drop. As
the ejector system load decreases, its
suction pressure drops, thereby improv-
ing the tower vacuum (Figure 6).
Prior to the revamp, the vacuum gas oil
production from the pre-condenser was
approximately 800 bpd (Figure 7). After
the modifcations, the overhead gas oil
production dropped to less than 100bpd,
as shown in Figure 8. This fow reduction
decreased the pressure drop through the
overhead gas oil pre-condenser, which is
located in front of the frst-stage ejector.
Furthermore, the naphtha boiling range
condensable production decreased, lower-
ing the ejector system load. A reduction
in the load allowed the ejectors to pull
better vacuum, which reduced the column
fash zone pressure from 2620 mmHg.
The improvement in the fash zone
vacuum was previously presented in
Figure 1. This increase in vacuum prevented the
degradation of the HVGO product cut point even
though the crude charge was heavier.
Conclusion
Modifcations to the atmospheric crude tower
helped increase CITGOs ability to process heavy
crude oils.10 Figure 9 shows that the API gravity
of the VTB has decreased from greater than 4
to less than 3 API following the revamp and
crude quality changes. The revamped atmos-
pheric column performance helped reduce both
the vacuum column operating pressure and the
HVGO product cut point degradation, even
though the crude is now heavier. Table 3 is a
summary of the changes that occurred to both
the crude and vacuum units as a result of the
revamp.
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400
800
1200
1600
1800
1400
1000
600
200
0
2000
37.40
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0
100
200
300
400
500
1 /1 3 /2001
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3 /8 /2004
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295.19 122.92 221.99 225.42
Figure 7 Vacuum pre-condenser gas oil production, bpd
Figure 8 Vacuum ejector naphtha production, bpd
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0.6
1.2
1.8
2.4
3
3.6
4.2
4.8
5.4
6
0
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4.57 4.19 2.82 2.98
Figure 9 Vacuum tower bottoms API gravity
References
1 Barletta T, Kurzym K, Consider retrots to handle high viscosity
crudes, Hydrocarbon Processing, September 2004.
2 White S, Barletta T, Reners processing heavy crudes can
experience crude distillation problems, Oil & Gas Journal, 18
November 2002.
3 Golden S W, Binkley, Crude tower modication stabilizes
operation, Oil & Gas Journal, 197204, 30 July 1984.
4 Hanson D W, Lieberman N P, Lieberman E T, De-entrainment
and washing of ash zone vapours in heavy oil fractionators,
Hydrocarbon Processing, 5560, July 1999.
5 Hanson D, Langston J, Low capital crude revamp increases
product yield, Oil & Gas Journal, 16 March 2003.
6 Hanson and Martin, Low capital revamp increases vacuum gas
oil yield, Oil & Gas Journal, 7082, 18 March 2002.
7 Golden S W, N Lieberman, Martin, Correcting design
errors can prevent coking in main fractionators, Oil &
Gas Journal, 7280, 21 November 1994.
8 Martin G R, Barletta T, Vacuum unit red heater
coking avoid unscheduled shutdowns, PTQ, 123
127, Spring 2001.
9 Barletta T, Why vacuum unit red heaters coke,
PTQ, 123127, Autumn 2002.
10 Golden S W, Troubleshooting vacuum unit
revamps, PTQ, 107113, Summer 1998.
Daryl W Hanson is a chemical engineer with Process
Consulting Services Inc, Houston, Texas, USA. He
specialises in all phases of renery distillation, from
process simulation through eld inspection.
Email: dhanson@revamps.com
John V Bernickas is an engineering consultant at
the CITGO Petroleum Corporation Lemont renery,
Lemont, Illinois, USA. He has over 33 years of
rening experience, the last 16 years of which have
been in crude atmospheric and vacuum distillation,
crude oil desalting, corrosion and fouling control,
renery troubleshooting and delayed coking. He has
authored four papers that have been presented at
CITGOs PDVSA afliate workshops and is a charter
member of the corporations Centers of Excellence.
Bernickas has a BS in chemical engineering from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tony Barletta is a chemical engineer with Process
Consulting Services Inc, Houston, Texas, USA. His primary
responsibilities are conceptual process design (CPD) and process
design packages (PDP) for large capital revamps. His CPD work
involves heater and other major equipment modications.
Email: tbarletta@revamps.com
6 PTQ Q3 2005 www.digitalrening.com/article/1000093
Before revamp Change after revamp
Atmospheric tower
Crude API gravity Base 1 API reduction
AGO yield, LV% Base ~1 LV% increase
AGO TBP cut point Base ~15F increase
AGO visual colour Dark brown Yellow green
AGO colour, ASTM D 1500 ASTM colour +6 ASTM colour +3
AGO wash oil section 24ft diameter 19ft diameter with
with 7 trays ~4ft packed bed
Wash oil ux, hot GPM/ft2
Entering top section NA 0.80
Leaving bottom section 0.15 0.25
Measured overash, LV% 1 1
Atmospheric heater outlet Base ~10F reduction
Atmospheric feed distributor 90 vapour horn 360 vapour horn
Reduced crude stripper 10ft diameter 11.5ft diameter
with 5 trays with 7 trays
Stripper steam, lb/bbl 7.5 <9
Vacuum tower
Pre-condenser gas oil, bpd 800 <100
Ejector naphtha, bpd 300 220
Flash zone pressure 26mmHg 20mmHg
HVGO TBP cut point Base ~ No change
VTB API gravity >4 API <3 API
Summary of changes to crude and vacuum towers
Table 3

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