Abstract

Steam Crackers use a wide range of petroleum feedstocks spanning from gases to hydrocracked distillates boiling well beyond 400°C. The exploitation of the interface of crackers with oil refineries has therefore a long tradition. In the recent past in Europe the interest in this oil/chemical interface has been revitalised for a number of reasons:

  • in the competitive environment cracker profitability crucially depends on the availability of economic feedstocks,

  • with the decline in heating oil demand and the future automotive fuels specifications product valuations are bound to drastically change, and

  • the value of pygas is expected to reduce due to future aromatics and sulphur specifications of motor gasoline.

With cracker feedstocks coming from the refinery and the cracker co-products returning, the future additional constraints will require an evermore sophisticated optimisation to eventually also include short term price variations.

In Germany in the Cologne/Wesseling area with its neighbouring 2 complex refineries, 4 ethylene crackers and the petrochemical derivative manufacturing facilities, the integrated optimization of the steamcrackers and the refinery processes would deliver considerable benefits. In such a configuration further profit could be expected from the cracking of feedstocks not normally commercially available, and from an integrated utilisation of refinery and cracker unit constraints.

Introduction

The oil industry, as well as the petrochemical industry have been under an enormous competitive pressure for several years. The large number of mergers with their objective to reap synergies via the economy of scale are one indication of this.

Controllable costs (salaries, materials) only represent about 12% of the total, but nevertheless they have been vigourously forced down. Raw materials and energy costs add another 82% leading to a revival of energy saving programmes, and to a major effort to flexibly select the most advantageous feedstock for the processing units.

On the margin side trends can be identified to innovatively adjust and modify the existing units in order to bring them into line with forecasted market demands showing growth in ethylene and propylene consumption but overall a decline in refined products, especially for motor gasoline and heating oil, with only a slight increase in automotive gasoil consumption. Furthermore, due to the auto/oil legislation, the opportunities and constraints for all market participants have been shifted BLOCK 2 - - FORUM 9 221

PETROCHEMICAL STEAM CRACKERS AS REFINERY UPGRADING UNITS

and companies strive to achieve the required legislative pro

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