Modification Of Outlet Stream Of The Atmospheric Distillation To Improve Products From Heavy Crude Oil

Abstract

Heavy crude oil distillation is a major challenge in the Nigeria’s refinery of today. The refining process changes raw petroleum into about 2500 products. Some of the major products are distilled by simulation procedure in this work. These include gasoline, dual purpose kerosene, diesel and fuel oils. The simulation exercise starts with charging of heavy crude oil into a de-salter with the temperature condition of 250o F. All other operating conditions such as the flow rate for the input crude oil was included in the worksheet. The distillation proceeded to a great extent and was controlled by the heavy crude oil that was fed into the preheater and the picked slate of oil based feeds. In order to obtain the targeted product, continuous refluxed was introduced into the simulation route. This was done to increase the output stream of the Atmospheric Distillation Unit. The product of the distillation obtained is in agreement with the general product cut expected from heavy crude oil. The success of these procedures which included the modified outlet stream are necessary for refinery’s upgrade in Nigeria because of the energy saved.