Pour point depression unit using mild thermal cracker
AssigneeKellogg Brown & Root LLC
InventorsGee S. Fung, Philip E. DePalm, Puneet Sharma
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for lowering the cloud/pour point of a waxy crude oil in locations where size and/or weight of the facility may need to be limited (i.e. arctic zones and offshore). The major components of the system comprise a fractionation/quench tower and a reaction furnace. The furnace has sufficient heat input to initiate thermal cracking of wax and the fractionation tower is operated at a temperature sufficient to flash off light hydrocarbons but also low enough to quench thermal cracking reaction. The feed to the furnace comprises a portion of the bottoms stream from the tower and the furnace output is fed back into the tower bottom to be quenched.
Claims41
A system for lowering the pour point of a crude feed containing wax, comprising:
- a fractionation tower into which the crude feed is fed and separated into low-boiling and high-boiling fractions, said low-boiling fraction forming a tower overhead stream and said high-boiling fraction forming a tower bottoms stream, said tower bottoms stream being split downstream of the fractionation tower into a recycle stream and an export stream, wherein the compositions of the recycle stream and the export stream are substantially equivalent;
- and
- a furnace for heating said recycle stream to a cracking temperature that is sufficient to initiate thermal cracking of the wax;
- wherein the recycle stream leaving the furnace is fed into the fractionation tower for quenching;
- wherein a first portion of the tower overhead stream is burned in the furnace so as to supply sufficient heat to the first portion in the furnace to initiate thermal cracking of the wax.
The system according to claim 6 wherein said gas recovery system provides gaseous compounds to said furnace.
A system for lowering the pour point of a crude feed containing wax, comprising:
- a fractionation tower into which the crude feed is fed and separated into low-boiling and high-boiling fractions, said low-boiling fraction forming a tower overhead stream and said high-boiling fraction forming a tower bottoms stream, said tower bottoms stream being split downstream of the fractionation tower into a recycle stream and an export stream, wherein the compositions of the recycle stream and the export stream are substantially equivalent;
- a furnace for heating said recycle stream to a cracking temperature that is sufficient to initiate thermal cracking of the wax;
- and
- a gas recovery system that receives gaseous compounds from tower overhead stream and provides gaseous compounds to said furnace;
- wherein the recycle stream leaving the furnace is fed into the fractionation tower for quenching.
A system for lowering the pour point of a crude feed containing wax, comprising:
- a fractionation tower into which the crude feed is fed and separated into low boiling fraction forming a tower overhead stream and said high-boiling fraction forming a tower bottoms stream, said tower bottoms stream being split downstream of the fractionation tower into a recycle stream and an export stream, wherein the compositions of the recycle stream and the export stream are substantially equivalent;
- and
- a furnace for heating said recycle stream to a cracking temperature that is sufficient to initiate thermal cracking of the wax;
- wherein the recycle stream leaving the furnace is fed into the fractionation tower for quenching.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.