1. f(ECEiVED FES 2 5 1976
Vol. 74, No.8 Oll&( ,A"
OUR:l;l
CONTENTS Feb. 23, 1976
~~- Record capital spending seen for 1976 despite price rollback
GaleNt I~i:
U.S. oil budget this year hits record $26.5 billion
Canadian firms slate 34% jump in capital spending for 1976
Exact timing of resid decontrol still unknown .
ARCO gets big advance payment from Northern in gulf
FEA proposes revisions to entitlements program
U.K. seen near first participation pact
Senate loan-guarantee bill pushes energy conservation .
FEA hearings draw strong decontrol support
Joint microwave system set in western Gulf of Mexico
Shale output of 50,000 bid sought for Colorado tract
U.S. Briefs
Two-tier crude-price suit advances
FEA opens fire on House-passed natural-gas bill
Gas curtailments threaten southern California
International Briefs
Drilling- Pro4uction:
OCS 41 high bids total only $183 million
Marathon to file for Yates unit soon
Iran's price' cut aims for boost in production .
ERDA to seek waterflood-pilot proposals
New crude postings reflect $11.28 lid
Public drilling funds decline for third year
Soviets claim gas-production gain of over 1 trillion cu ft
Record Yugoslavian oil production still short .
Processing:
Refiners sue FEA for entitlements
Algerian LNG-plant contract awarded to Pullman Kellogg
U.S. December ammonia output up 10%
Transportation:
NGPL joins HIOS gas project off Texas
Texaco hits Puget Sound superport plan
Move to speed Alaskan gas line seen
Watching the World-More gloom for the tanker trade
Williams expansion, oil swaps favored to feed Northern Tier
Exploration:
Deep wildcat staked in Central Utah .
Pan arctic hits deeper gas pay in Arctic Islands' Hecla field
Smaller Gulf of Alaska sale gets green light
Drilling programs link Oklahoma gas fields
S. Laredo gas-field play continues along Rio Grande .
Advertisers
Calendar
Classified Advertising
Deaths
Regular features
178 Discoveries ... 161 Letters
36 Equipment/Literature 134 Personals
168 Industry Statistics 166 Point of View
165 Journally Speaking 43 Services/Suppliers
THE COVER:Ammonia plant at Donaldsonville, l.a., is owned by First Mississippi Corp. and Triad
Chemical. A special report on how refiners and plant operators are boosting plant efficiency begins
on p, 79. Photo courtesy First Mississippi Corp.
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2. Increased Processing Efficiency
Practical analysis can cut plant energy use, trim operating costs
George H. Perry and James D. Monteaux
A computer program to evaluate fired heater performance and an
analysis of electricity use are the elements of a basic approach to
energy conservation.
Boiler blowdown source of heat, condensate
H. H. Comstock and B. T. Bone
Recovery of steam at usable pressures, improved condensate collec-
tion, and reduced steam venting can justify equipment revisions in an
older refinery.
PSA system can reduce hydrogen costs
Wesley Wolf
The pressure swing adsorption process (PSA) , widely used to recover
pure hydrogen from fuel streams, can be used with steam-reformer
plants to reduce hydrogen-generation costs by 5-7%.
Process computer monitors, reduces energy use
Pierre R. Latour
Savings resulted from installation of a computer to monitor fuel-gas
consumption, fuel-oil firings, and steam use in this Canadian refinery.
79
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92
If
/
TECHNOLOGY
Pipeline
Pipeline contractors gain Arctic construction experience
Travis E. Smith
Contractors have found that special techniques make it possible to
build a pipeline under severe Arctic conditions.
Drilling/ Production
Injection-pump study can cut costs
Robert S. Smith
The design of a complete waterflood-injection system requires analysis
of the cost of various equipment arrangements.
Lost circulation complicates well-killing operations
Bill Rehm
Lost circulation during well killing operations is both expensive and
hazardous, but several techniques can help minimize the cost and
danger.
Refining/Processing
Integrating two processes makes petrochemicals from full crude
S. (Ray) Sinkar
Proper integration of two proven processing sequences provides an
efficient energy-self-supporting process for making petrochemicals
from full crude.
Process costimating-68A
W. L. Nelson
Use of TEL in U.S. gasolines (approximate).
Biodisk improves effluent-water-treating operation
Gary E. Congrcm
Chevron Oil chose the biodisk to complement its revised effluent-
water-treating system.
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126
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Box 1260, Tulsa, OK 74101.

3. INCREASED
PROCESSING
EFFICIENCY
Process computer monitors, reduces
PIERRE R. LATOUR
Biles & Associates
Houston
Condensed from a paper given at the
68th Annual AIChE, Los Angeles, Nov.
16-20, 1975.
LOCATED on the St. Lawrence River
at Quebec City, Que., the lOO,OOO-b/d
Golden Eagle refinery serves as a
topping plant for local gasoline mar-
kets, fuel oils, and utility bunker oils.
Crude is supplied by tanker and most
products are shipped by water.
The refinery has atmospheric and
vacuum-distillation units, a catalytic
reformer, HDS units, and LP-gas re-
covery. Important energy consumers
in this plant include: crude and vac-
uum heaters, three boilers for pro-
cess and winterizing steam, distilla-
Fuel-gas controls
Fig. 1
Unifiner charge
t·~.8 in. - - . fuel-gas supply
P---~~--~--~~~~~~~~~--------------~~--~------~~Aare
Relief to flore
I
I
C7---I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
,-----,I
I
I
I
,
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
Vapor-
balance
drum
3 in.
Platformer stabilizer
to
Pilot supply
Stripper receiver
low-pressure flash
I
~
W
Reactor-product separator
1----11-- ••........- Plotfonner low-pressure separator
Unifiner stripper
±~-_ ...•
OGJ
Stabilizer receiver
Stripper receiver
Unifiner-product separator
De"ethonizer receiver
Depropanizer overhead
lP-ga$ surge
Compressor-discharge receiver
-~
I
I
I Butane
'--~~4;><J--+;';';";;----Depropanizer
load dump
1><1 2 in. ~ Flore
r0I
II ~ Vacuum heater
:0II •. Crude-unit heater
i0II •. Crude-unit heater
:0II ~ Boiler
:0'11 ~ Boiler
:0·11 •. Boiler
:0Ii •. Naphtha-splitter heater
:-0
11 •. Platfonner -charge heater
:-0
II •. Platformer heater
r0
II •. Platformer heater
'-- .- Hot-oil heater and
Hrregenerator heoler .
92 THE OIL AND GAS JOURNAL - FEBRUARY 23, 1976

4. energy use
tion column reboilers, and reformer
furnaces.
Winters in Quebec City are cold
with subzero weather and 150 in. of
snow annually. Average fuel-oil and
gas consumption for the plant is
about 1,160MMBTU/hr.
In 1972, Golden Eagle installed a
General Electric 4020 process-control
computer for logging and informa-
tion about utilities consumption to
help the refinery reduce costs. With
a reduction of 5% in consumption, the
refinery would save nearly $700/day
in 1972 (based on $0.50/MMBTU cost).
The 1975 incentive at $2/MMBTU re-
sults in savings of $2,800/day.
Fuel-gas control. Not all of the gas
Fuel-gas system
Fig. 2
OGJ
Vaporizer makeup Fuel gas colleded
Fuel-oil control
Tank
~
lStrai~er5
P~mp I .-Filters 1
0Tank
oI
1
Return header I~~----------~Ir-~~--~--~~--~
From
storage
or resid
line
To tank
Flare Burn
Fig. 3
OGJ
Process
Crude-unit heater
Unmeasured
No meter
r---,.-•..-r------t~Asphalt hot-oil heaters
1---0
II-I --- __ •. ~ Boiler
,--0
1+-1 ----t.~Boiler
1--0
II-I --~ .•~~ Boiler
")--0
·':2~·~
",--0
II-r--~-~ Va~uum heater
(rude heater
Crude heater
THE OIL AND GASJOURNAL-FEBRUARY 23,1976 93

5. Refinery-steam system
Fig. 4
Boilers
Refonner-woste-
heat boiler
Total 140-psi supply
Off sites
Winterizing
Tanks
Process
Unmeasured
Crude-unit stripping
De-ethanizer reboiler
Deproponizer reboiler
OGJ
flows (Fig. 1) are measured, since
only orifices, or flow elements (FE),
are installed without transmitters or
cabling to the control room and com-
puter.
Total fuel-gas, boiler-fuel-gas, and
flared-gas flows are corrected to
standard cubic feet by computer cor-
rections for flowing temperature,
pressure, and gravity which can dif-
fer from orifice-factor assumption.
A specific - gravity analyzer plus
temperature and pressure signals are
installed on the hydrocarbon - vapor-
collection header near orifice FIT 30.
Computer corrects flowing gravity for
pressure and temperature and deter-
mines standard 60° F. gravity.
Computer uses a constant standard
specific gravity for makeup butane
from the LP-gas vaporizer. Design
value is 2.00 using a mol wt of 58 for
the butane.
With this information, gravity of
the fuel-gas mixture can be calcu-
lated from the hydrocarbon-vapor-bal-
ance drum which is the refinery-fuel-
gas supply. Fuel-gas variables are re-
ported in sequence as in Fig. 2.
Fuel-oil system. Sup ply - header
flow, return flow, net flow to each
boiler, gross flow to each crude-unit
94
heater cell and return flow from each
crude-unit-heater cell are scanned
by the computer (Fig. 3). These
flows are corrected for temperature
and gravity and are expressed in
1,000 bid for consistency and error
reduction.
Fuel-oil variables are reported in
the following sequence: .
1. Total fuel oil burned (difference
between supply and return header
flows plus pitch to platformer and
unifiner heaters).
2. Fuel oil consumed in the three
boilers.
3. Fuel oil burned in the crude-unit
heater (sum of four orifices).
4. Unmeasured fuel oil burned in
the vacuum heater, hot-oil heater,
and three reboiler furnaces.
Percentage of crude-unit-heater fuel
varies with crude type and rate. The
crude-unit heater is a dual - fired
heater and is the swing on fuel oil.
Total fuel consumed by the refinery,
fuel oil plus equivalent barrels of fuel
gas, is expressed as a percentage of
crude so that processing efficiency can
be checked.
Steam. Primary orifice measure-
ments for the refinery-steam system
(Fig. 4) include three individual boil-
ers; reformer waste-heat boiler; two
tank-heating steam flows; winteriz-
ing steam flow; five crude-unit strip-
ping steams; and two column reboil-
ers (others are measured but not
scanned by the computer).
Crude-unit heat. Crude-unit heater
duty/barrel of crude charge is cal-
culated with both gas and oil fuels.
Accurate study of this variable can
show trends with crude types, rates,
and yield patterns.
Oxygen-analyzer and stack-tempera-
ture readings allow computation of
excess air and fur n ace efficiency
which lead to crude-heat uptake.
A crude-tower overall-heat balance
gives another determination of crude-
heat uptake and discrepancy shows
nonclosure of heat balance and mea-
surement problems.
Heat-exchanger duties for important
exchangers are calculated by the
computer. Rigorous calculation of
overflash has h e I p e d in reducing
crude-unit-energy consumption.
Reformer and hydrotreater. Signals
from the naphtha hydro treater and
catalytic ref 0 r mer are computer
scanned. Many of these signals are
used for process engineering calcula-
tions and controls not directly related
to energy savings but some do play
important roles in energy reduction.
Heat duties and heat consumption/
bbl feed are calculated for all fur-
naces. Accurate analysis of gas-recy-
cle ratio saves furnace-heat require-
ments and compressor loads.
Feed composition (paraffins, ole-
fins, naphthenes, and aromatics) and
its effects on total reformer energy
use can be evaluated with on-line com-
puter data. Effect of reformer sever-
ity and octane number can be accu-
rately evaluated for energy consump-
tion with this information.
DistiUation columns. Signals from
six distillation columns are scanned
by the computer. Naphtha stabilizer,
de-ethanizer, and depropanizer have
exchanger reboilers with measurable
duty. Steam used per bbl of column
feed and reboiler MBTU/bbl column
feed are calculated for these columns.
Ratio of reflux to column feed is also
calculated for these columns.
Data reporting. Utilities variables
are reported in three groups for gas,
oil, and steam on one shift/daily re-
port. Average value and 95% confi-
dence interval (two standard devia-
tions) for the period (hour, shift, or
day) are also reported. END
THE OIL AND GAS JOURNAL - FEBRUARY 23, 1976