(57d) Integrating Petrochemical Industry with a Fuel Oriented Refinery

Petroleum refining is a capital-intensive business. With stringent environmental regulations on the processing industry, declining refining margins, and political instability, higher pressures are exerted on refiners to optimize performance and find the best combination of feed and processes to produce salable products that meet stricter product specifications, while at the same time meeting refinery supply commitments and of course making profit. For long time, petrochemicals including Aromatics and olefins were produced in chemical or petrochemical plants that may be a part of a refining corporation but not integrated in a refinery. Both Refining and petrochemical businesses go on cycles between low and high margins. However, the duration of these peaks are different. Many refining corporation are looking to optimize the resources to produce valuable petrochemical feedstock from the cheapest refinery streams.. One of the best places to do this is within the refinery itself. Some of this optimization can be done with a minimum process condition change while other requires major revamp. However, even these revamps can payback very quickly. In this paper, we will show real cases in which the refining and petrochemical businesses had shifted the operations dramatically between fuels, olefins and aromatics production. In addition, it will cover some consideration taken into account in designing three new grass root refineries and a refinery upgrade for the maximum benefit from fuels-petrochemicals integration.