FLEXICOKING

at
Esso Rotterdam
06 October 2003
TU Delft
Aad Rooijmans
Esso Nederland BV
Flexicoker
Rotterdam Refinery

Summary

Market demand and crude oil supply

Location Flexicoker in refinery flowsheet
Conversion : light products out of vacuum residu
Flexicoking process description
Reactor
Heater
Gasifier
Coke transfer between vessels
Reliability prevails over the last ton thruput

Market demand and crude oil supply

LPG/Gas
Nafta/Gasoline
Kero/Jet
Diesel
Fuel Oil

Market demand and crude oil supply

17

LPG/Gas

Nafta/Gasoline

Kero/Jet

Diesel

Fuel Oil
44

Arabian
Light

Market demand and crude oil supply

17

19

24

LPG/Gas
Nafta/Gasoline
Kero/Jet
Diesel

44

44

Arabian Light

1970

Fuel Oil
31

1985

Market demand and crude oil supply

15

19

24

27

LPG/Gas
Nafta/Gasoline
Kero/Jet
Diesel

44

Arabian
Light

44

1970

31

28

1985

2005

Fuel Oil

Market demand and crude oil supply

15

12
19

24

27

LPG/Gas
Nafta/Gasoline
Kero/Jet

44

Arabian
Light

44

1970

55
31

28

2005

Arabian
Heavy

Diesel
Fuel Oil

Esso Rotterdam Refinery

LPG

Crude

Powerformer

A
P
S

Gasoline
Aromatics

LPG
Nafta
Jet
Diesel

Jet
Diesel
Heating oil
Hydrocracker

to Le Havre
V
P
S

LPG
Nafta
Jet
Diesel

to Antwerp

Flexicoker

Gas
Cokes

Vacuum Residue Conversion Processes

Considerations:
Market demands for light products
Environmental legislation for cleaner products
Stricter regulations on refinery emissions
Vacuum residue contains a lot of carbon and little hydrogen
but also 3-5% sulphur, nitrogen and metals like vanadium and nickel

Vacuum Residue Conversion Processes

Two routes for vacuum residue conversion :
Hydrogen addition processes : Residfining, Hycon
high temperature, high hydrogen pressure
rapid catalyst deactivation requires large reactors or moving
catalyst
sensitive for metal contaminants
products do not need any further treating
Carbon rejection by thermal cracking : Delayed Coking, FLUID and
FLEXICOKING
high temperature, low pressure, no hydrogen
no catalyst, abundant coke
insensitive to contaminants
low refinery SO2 emissions
products need after treatment in conventional hydrofiners

Flexicokers
All build 1980 - 1990, investment > 1 billion $$
Rotterdam
Baytown
Martinez
TOA
Amuay

NL
USA-Tx
USA-Ca
Japan
Venezuela

ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Shell
State-owned
State-owned

Why only 5 Flexicokers in the world ?

Initial investment
Mechanical cost (mainly in Turnaround)
Runlength

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Reactor
Oil is cracked in Reactor and does not travel to Hx or Gx

600 ton fluidized bed of 50 - 300 micron coke particles at 510 - 530C
7 meters diameter, 70 meters high
fluidization by steam and product vapors

Reactor is fed at 6 elevations; several feed nozzles per ring

Product yields
Gas and LPG
Naphtha and gasoils
Coke

10 - 15 %
55 - 65 %
25 - 30 %

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Reactor

Heat input via coke transport from heater, 2000 ton/hr, dT= 100 C

Tight temperature control

reactor too hot : liquid yield loss due to over cracking
reactor too cold : more wall coke or even bogging

Reactor products leave reactor via cyclones to scrubber

entrained coke particles are scrubbed with liquid feed in scrubber
preheat feed and control FBP heavy gasoil product / recycle

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Reactor
What to watch for during operation ?

Bogging (too low Reactor temperature)

Blockage of coke transport to/from heater
Coke entrainment / sticky coke
High vessel wall temperature
Hydrocarbon carry under

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Heater

600 - 630C bed, fluidized by LJG from Gasifier

Cools LJG and transfers heat to cold reactor coke

Temperature fine tuning with a little bit of air

Mechanically complicated vessel

many transfer lines and 14 two stage cyclones
internal gas distribution/bed support grid exposed to high temperatures
quench tee and sugar scoop

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Heater Maintenance Challenges

Grid Can Orifice Erosion

Orifices center caps plug with coke lumps

Orifices of outer caps erode in 1 run
Replace entire can is quickest repair option
Repairs on critical path of site turnaround
Splash plates and birdcages
Grid redesign idea

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Heater Maintenance Challenges
Carburization of Stainless Steel

All internals stainless steel : 18% Cr/ 8% Ni

Temperature range 590 - 635C
Gas contains H2, CO and H2S
CO reacts with Cr to chromium carbides
H2S corrosion of steel due to reduced Cr content
Cyclones replaced in last turnaround

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Gasifier

900 - 950 C, 7 meter high fluidized bed, 16 meter diameter

Coke gasification / combustion

C + O2 ->
C + H2O ->
C + CO2 ->

CO
CO + H2
2 CO

exo
endo
endo

Gasifies approx. 85-90% of reactor coke production

Low Joule Gas contains 50% nitrogen and H2, CO, CO2, H2S and NH3
Temperature control with steam

Coke circulation for heat transfer and prevents too small coke particles

Hot spots

FLEXICOKING Process Description

Coke Transfer lines
Guess how many ?

Rx-Hx 3x
Hx-Gx 2x
Hx-Qx 1x

How can you transfer coke against the pressure ?

Successes and Disappointments over 17 years

Significant (33%) capacity creep at low cost
Runlength doubled; reliability is high priority
6 out of 7 runs completed as scheduled

Air Blower problems 1 year after initial start-up

Severe fouling in Heater Overhead Exchangers
Gasifier Hot Spots
Heater maintenance challenges

Reliability and thruput history

Run
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Ton/hr
202
229
254
258
262
265
269

Days on oil
591
608
570
684
1048
1063
1195

Reliability and thruput history

Reliability increases effective thruput !

Good process follow-up and stable operation key to success

DMC controller installed in 2001
Some hardware changes essential too:
spare heat exchangers, material upgrading,
instrumentation upgrading, design changes
to reduce turnaround time
Plan for current run is to increased from 3.5 to 4 years

1988-2003 debottlenecks

minor Fluid Solids changes

2 new destillation towers

replaced a number of pumps
diverted LPG from LPG/coker naphtha hydrofiner

Stretch run length with care :

Unplanned turnaround has high debits

MEuro

contractors ask more money for same scope

contractors need 14 days to mobilize

result is additional downtime

turnaround cost spread over shorter run

coker down means Pipestill down

jet and diesel to be purchased on spot market

1.5
4
3.5
3.5

next run more conservative approach

2.5

total additional cost of unplanned turnaround

15

Partial reactor bog terminated run 2 prematurely

Air Blower problems 1 year after initial start-up

High bearing temperature reading

made entire organization nervous

Serious problem or not ?

Repair required or do we reach turnaround ?
How to operate the coker and rest of the refinery ?
How to minimize risk and costs ?

2 day case study chemical + mechanical engineers

FLEXICOKING

Questions ?