Success Story

Hydroprocessing in the O&G refining industry refers to two separate, yet similar, processes: hydrocracking and hydrotreating. The hydrocracking process converts a variety of petroleum fractions, including oil recovered from solvent extraction of petroleum residues, into more valuable, lower-boiling fuel products. Hydrotreating refers to the process of upgrading the quality of petroleum distillate fractions, such as catalytic and thermally cracked distillates, by decomposing the contaminants with a negligible effect on the boiling range of the feed.

REXA recently conducted a successful installation on a crude unit heater at a refinery in California. Furnaces help refineries and petrochemical plants break down and convert hydrocarbon fluids into fuels or chemicals such as gasoline, diesel, ethylene, and propylene. When making process improvements, these facilities tend to overlook improving furnace draft control. There are many instruments to choose from when optimizing the draft in a process heater. The challenge is safely elevating process fluid temperature to a target level, maximizing thermal efficiency and throughput and reducing O2, CO and NOx emissions.

Steam turbines are found in almost any processing plant or power generation facility. Used as the driver for other rotating equipment, steam turbines convert thermal energy to rotational energy — ultimately controlling the input speed or power of a driven device. Any turbine downtime negatively impacts the overall plant process. Therefore, reliable and repeatable control is imperative for efficient plant process and maximum profitability.