Fossil Fuels

All refiners—and manufacturers in general—face daunting logistical challenges including supply chain, changing product specifications, carbon legislation, and regulatory compliance. In addition, the industry faces knowledge management issues due to the reality of an aging work force. Information...

Crude oil distillation accounts for a large fraction of the energy used in oil refining. Crude oil contains a variety of substances which tend to deposit as fouling layers in heat exchangers, and this results in decreased energy recovery and requires increased energy input to the furnace. CDU pre-...

Can the instrumentation, control, and protective systems for fired heaters as defined by the prescriptive API recommended standard 556 be reconciled with IEC 61511 / ANSI/ISA 84 by implementing an Integrated Control and Safety System? What cost savings can be identified and measured from both the...

There are many methods to tune PID controllers. This presentation provides a tutorial on tuning PID process controllers using Internal Model Control (IMC) concepts. This tuning methodology allows the user to “coordinate” the response of related controllers to optimize the process performance rather...

Crude oil distillation unit (CDU) and Delayed coking unit (DCU) present significant energy consumption in a refinery, given the high flow rates involved on process streams. As refiners are increasing the process of opportunity crudes, heat integration on these units becomes more relevant. Because...

Hydrostatic testing of piping and vessels designed to handle LNG or other cryogenic liquids is problematic because of the need to remove residual water. Pneumatic pressure testing of piping and vessels at moderate-to-high test pressures is more hazardous than hydrostatic pressure testing because...

The LNG (liquefied natural gas) receiving terminal is an important sector of the entire LNG value chain. The handling of boil-off gas (BOG) during LNG re-gasification at LNG-receiving terminals significantly influences the BOG flare emission and the energy consumption. In this paper, thermodynamic...

Process manufacturers lose millions of dollars each year due to process variability and poor control performance, often unaware they even have a problem. Control engineers and instrument technicians are typically overworked and ill-equipped to monitor and maintain the hundreds of control loops and...

It is often assumed that a SIS system forever meets all the SIS requirements of the project Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) and Safety System Requirements (SRS). In reviewing a number of installed refinery SIS systems with respect to maintenance issues and operational issues a pattern starts...