Description of Urea Plant

Typical process steps involved in a urea plant are

urea synthesis, urea purification, concentration &
prilling and process water treatment, Figure 2.

Figure 1: General Layout of Complex

Occupational Fire Utility Air

& Cooling Towers for Compression
Health
Safety Ammonia-1& Urea-1 Units
Centre

Ammonia-1 Urea-1
Power
Generation
Unit-1

Central Control room

for Power Generation
Ammonia-1& Urea-1 Unit-2

Ammonia-2 Urea-2

The booster pump discharge is fed to the

The urea plant where the incident took place
reciprocating HP ammonia feed pumps and
operates with all the latest features, such as:
pressure is further increased to around 23500KPa
(240 Kscg) before it is fed to the urea reactor for
1. 14 improved Casale Sieve trays in the urea production of Urea, Figure 3.
reactor.
2. Bi-metallic HP stripper
The reciprocating pumps were supplied by M/s
3. Dedicated vacuum section for the pre-
Peroni, Italy. The pumps have five horizontal
concentrator
type plungers, with oil lubrication / sealing for
4. Pre MP decomposer to utilize the excess low
packings / plungers. Table 1 shows pump
pressure steam generated in the plant.
specification sheet and Figure 5 the plunger
5. Wet and dry de-dusting systems for the prill
packing arrangement.
tower and conveyor gantry.
Incident
Ammonia coming from the ammonia plant or
ammonia storage is drawn into a receiver tank and
On 04th May 2007, at around 03.33 hrs, Urea
pressure is initially boosted via centrifugal pumps
plant-1 field operators, who were in the field
to around 2000 KPa (21Kscg).

AMMONIA TECHNICAL MANUAL 86 2010

 room, heard some sound in the field and came out.
They noticed a heavy ammonia leak from the HP
ammonia feed pump (P101-C) and immediately
informed the control room via the paging system.

Figure 2: General Layout of Equipments in Urea Plant-1

Carbamate Urea N
Condenser Reactor
CO2
Ammonia Compressor Decomposition
Compressor House & Vacuum
House concentration

Prill
Tower
Ammonia
Syn.Loop
And
Hydrogen
Recovery
Unit
HP Ammonia Feed HP Carbonate
Pumps Pumps

Area Operators
Cabin

Figure 3: Ammonia Network in Urea Plant

NH3 from
Ammonia Plant/
Storage

Ammonia Receiver
(V-101) Urea Reactor

On - Off HP Ammonia feed pumps

Valve P-101A/B/C

Ammonia Booster Pumps

P-105A/B

2010 87 AMMONIA TECHNICAL MANUAL

 At 03.35 hrs, the pump was tripped locally by the
field operator. Normally, operators use
radios/Walkie-Talkies only during Start-up and
Shut-down operations.
Unfortunately, the leak did not rescind and
ammonia vapors began spreading towards North –
East/West directions (Ammonia plant-1, Urea
plant, CO2 compressor house, Unit-1 cooling
towers and Unit-2 Power generation plant (Ref.
Fig No.4)).
At 03.40 hrs, it was decided to shut the plant
down. The other running HP ammonia feed pump
(P101-A) was tripped from the control room and
the shut-off valve in the HP ammonia feed pumps
suction was closed via the Shutdown System
(SDS) in the control room and the centrifugal
booster pump was stopped from the electrical
substation. Thereafter, the leak came under
control and plant shutdown actions were followed.
Table 1: Details HP Feed Pump Specification
AMMONIA TECHNICAL MANUAL
On-site emergency (Level-2 emergency), which
has the potential to affect the neighboring plants,
but not beyond the boundaries of NFCL was
declared. Assistance from Fire & Safety staff in
the form of Fire tender reached the site. Under the
guidance of the incident controller, spray curtains
were arranged to contain the spreading ammonia
vapour cloud.
Arresting leak and handling the emergency
1. Thick Ammonia vapors started spreading to
the Unit-2 Power Generation plant (combined
cycle gas turbine with waste heat recovery
boiler), Ammonia Plant-I back end and other
areas as indicated in Figure 4.
2. The Manual Call Point (MCP) (an alarm
button) was activated and a message was sent
to Fire & Safety control centre.
3. The Urea-I Shift in charge (SIC) (who had
taken charge as Incident controller) declared
an onsite emergency as the leak was not
arrested even upon tripping the besieged
pump. The other feed pump was also tripped
and then the shut-off valve in the common
suction was closed from a remote area i.e.
control room. Ammonia leaking out from the
besieged pump was completely stopped.
4. As the ammonia feed to the urea reactor got
cut off, the urea plant shutdown was initiated.
5. All important actions were carried out
immediately by the field operators by wearing
Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA)
after the urea plant shut down, viz. putting the
CO2 compressor on barring, diverting the urea
melt from the vacuum section to the storage
tank and washing different lines like reactor
feed lines, melt line etc.
88 2010