Understanding Refinery-Petrochemical Integrated Complex

Refinery Distillation

To understand a simplified overview of the refinery-petrochemical integrated complex, imagine the crude oil being the main source of the whole feedstock.

The Crude Oil will go under distillation whether it being atmospheric crude distillation or further refinement with vacuum distillation. The main products from the Crude Oil Distillations are:

1. Gas
2. Naphtha
3. Kerosene
4. Gas Oil
5. Others (this includes longer alkanes) which sometimes also referred to as naphtha

The Gas will produce:

1. C1 or methane
2. C2 or ethane
3. C3 or propane
4. C4 or mixed butanes

Thermal Crackers

The Naphtha and the Gas will usually go to either gas cracker or naphtha cracker. Cracker is basically a furnace that cracks the molecules to produce olefins.

Gas cracker will usually yield ethylene and propylene.

Naphtha cracker will usually yield:

1. Ethylene, propylene and butylenes
2. Butadiene
3. Aromatics
4. Naphtha cracker is usually a steam cracker type.

Reforming

The Naphtha will usually go to reformer, which undergoes reforming. Reforming basically ‘reforms’ the naphtha to become:

1. Branched alkanes
2. Cyclohexane
3. Aromatics

These products are usually blend with the gasoline to increase the RON number of the gasoline.

The Gas Oil will go into:

1. Diesel production
2. Gasoline after a blend with products from reformate or from aromatics.

Catalytic Cracking

The gas oil will also go to catalytic cracking to produce:

1. Ethylene, propylene and butylenes
2. Branched alkanes
3. Aromatics

It is called catalytic cracking because the cracking is done under the presence of catalyst. A typical catalytic cracking technology in the refinery-petrochemical industry would be RFCC or residual fluid catalytic cracking.