Q&A

ABIGAIL SLATER (HollyFrontier)
Salting typically occurs in the reactor effluent exchangers (shell and tube and fin fans), recycle and net gas compressors, and product stabilizer overhead system (top trays, overhead condenser, etc.). Common monitoring practices on exchangers and fin fans can be

DAVINDER MITTAL (HPCL Mittal Energy)
Chlorides have been a long standing issue in catalytic reformer operation. Until a few years ago, the focus on preventing operational problems from the chloride compounds in the catalytic reformer product stream was to remove HCl.  More recently, a growing

BILL KOSTKA (AXENS NORTH AMERICA)
Metal-catalyzed coke (MCC) formation typically occurs on 3d valence transition metals such as iron and nickel.  Under CCR-like conditions of low hydrogen partial pressure (less than about 620 kpa), high temperature (more than about 480 °C) and low or stagnant flow

BILL KOSTKA (AXENS NORTH AMERICA)
Liquid-phase Cl treaters are typically used in three locations for reforming units.

Treating the unstabilzed reformate stream provides several advantages.  The stream is heated upstream of the stabilizer column which ensures that any ammonium chloride is

ABIGAIL SLATER (HollyFrontier)
The most impactful parameter affecting alky acid consumption is feed quality. Reducing feed contamination will greatly reduce acid consumption. There are also operational changes that can be made to reduce acid consumption, but the biggest impact will be feed

JOE RYDBERG (CITGO)
The primary source document for dealing with High Temperature Hydrogen Attack (HTHA) is API Recommended Practice 941 – Steels for Hydrogen Service at Elevated Temperatures and Pressures in Petroleum Refineries and Petrochemical Plants. This document provides the basic guidelines

JOE RYDBERG (CITGO)
CITGO typically seeks process safety consultants to help with SIS design including SIL selection.  Kenexis is such a company who has provided the following technical information regarding depressurization systems.   

There are a multitude of different initiating events (loss of

FERNANDO MALDONADO (Shell Catalysts & Technologies)
The type and frequency of tests performed are unit and refinery specific. When creating or modifying a unit’s laboratory test schedule some factors to be considered include: 

1.    Unit objectives
2.    Past and/or current operational issues 
3.  

JOE RYDBERG (CITGO)
Mitigation of elevated pressure drop first begins with identification the nature of the pressure drop.  Is the DP a result of a more gradual buildup or a step change from a unit event or upset?  Was an event related to hydrogen starving of the unit or loss of recycle compressor?

AMIT KELKAR (Shell Catalysts & Technologies)
Nitrogen slip is a key variable in balancing the performance of the pretreat and cracking catalysts for cycle optimization. The optimum nitrogen slip depends on the specific unit objectives and constraints. In general, the pretreat temperature is adjusted