PetroVietnam Dung Quat Refinery - the next in a growing list of sites announcing the deferral of their planned major turnaround for 2020. https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2020/04/vietnams-dung-quat-refinery-may-delay-maintenance-to-2021-due-to-coronavirus?
Anyone who has worked in a refinery or petrochemical plant will know that the last year of the cycle is tough - equipment is fouled, pressure drops are higher, equipment is damaged and performing sub-optimally. It always felt like a massive relief when the shutdown finally commenced and everything could be refreshed ready for the next campaign.
While the current market conditions would make it a perfect moment to do a full turnaround now, COVID-19 makes this impossible - so facilities will be forced to limp through until it is safe for their employees and contractors to work in close proximity again, and that timing may coincide with some improvement in margins. The focus will then be on minimising the turnaround duration to get back into full operation as quickly as possible.
Our partners, ITW TECHNOLOGIES (www.itwtechnologies.com), have unique and proprietary on-line and off-line equipment cleaning technologies that can support refiners and petrochemicals facing this dilemma.
On-line applications can help to make that run length extension less difficult, save energy, alleviate pressure drop/throughput issues and remove work scope normally requiring a full unit shutdown from the future turnaround. Off-line applications provide rapid cleaning solutions, employed during the turnaround, that avoid the need to open equipment for mechanical cleaning, as well as quickly providing safe, gas-free access for personnel, reducing steam out time and improving flare availability.
In the refining industry ITW have proven applications, among others, for crude preheat train cleaning, vacuum tower and residue conversion units' fractionator heavy oil and sludge removal, desalter sludge removal, amine unit heat stable salt removal, crude and fuel oil tanks sludge removal - even in operations with the heaviest North American tar sands, and all with minimal personnel presence on-site (1-2 engineers only). Think of the safety benefits of fewer personnel, less cranes, fewer heavy lifts, less vessel entries in normally congested work areas.
As examples:
+ a typical crude unit desalter cleaning activity requiring 10 days to gas free, 4-5 days to clean and remove 40 m3 of sludge, was cleaned in just 6 hours using ITW technology.
+ an opportunity shutdown on a crude unit enabled a 24 hour clean of the preheat train, which recovered 15 degF (8 degC) of coil inlet temperature (or 90% of the lost preheat).
+ reformate benzene splitters (notoriously difficult to get benzene free without repeated steam outs) - down to zero benzene content within one day.
In the petrochemical industry ITW have proven applications, among others, in Ethylene, Butadiene, Styrene, SBR, NBR, and ABS.
As examples:
+ Extractive Distillation section of a Butadiene unit was cleaned in 1 day and without removal of the internals versus conventional mechanical cleaning that typically required 20 days for internals removal and decommissioning/commissioning. Safe entry conditions have been achieved in less than 14 hours compared to approximately 5 days of conventional steaming.
+ Ethylene Quench Oil, Quench Water, Depropanizer, Debutanizer, Caustic Scrubber have been cleaned in 24 hours.
+ Benzene Unit has achieved safe entry conditions in less than 24 hours.
Challenging times require a new mindset and innovative technologies.
Contact us for more information about how ITW Technologies can help you with your plant run length extension and turnaround duration minimisation efforts. CREAS is the ITW Technologies representative for clients in the United Kingdom.