Four steps to higher efficiency

The profitability formula

The great formulas in science have opened doors to new ways of thinking, resulting in rapid development and new technologies.
The introduction of welded plate heat exchangers represents a similar paradigm shift for the refinery business. As a new, much more
efficient technology enters the scene it challenges the old truth that heat exchangers mean shell-and-tubes.
The easy solution to a tough equation
The refinery business is under constant pressure to increase
efficiency. A highly competitive market in combination with
rising energy and feedstock costs require refineries to increase
production while decreasing operating costs.
Alfa Laval offers a well-proven and straightforward solution to
this seemingly impossible equation. The key is to use compact
heat exchangers instead of shell-and-tubes. This brings major
savings in operating and capital costs, and often makes it
possible to ramp up production.
Using compact heat exchangers offers
benefits in four areas. When adding these
up, the secret to staying ahead of the
competition becomes obvious.
We call this the profitability formula.
Energy savings
Up to 50% of a refinery’s operating budget is tied up in
energy costs. Energy efficiency is a top priority, and one way
to increase it is by recovering and reusing energy. This is done
in all refineries to some extent, but most still use outdated
shell-and-tube heat exchangers with low thermal efficiency.

Efficiency up to five times higher

-54%
Heat recovery efficiency can be increased by up to 50% by
simply switching from shell-and-tubes to welded plate heat
exchangers. More energy is then put back to use, energy
According to Energetics Incorporated the U.S.
that would otherwise have gone to waste.
refinery industry could cut energy use by up Investing in more efficient heat exchangers is very profitable
to 54% by implementing more energy efficient
technologies. for energy-intensive plants like refineries. The payback periods
are short, often less than six months.

10 MW
Saving 10 MW (34 MMBtu/h) of heat equals
Cut fuel and emission costs
Considering that a normal refinery has about 2,500 heat
exchangers, it is easy to see how fuel costs can be cut
annual fuel savings of €3,000,000 and 17,500 dramatically.
tons in reduced CO2 emissions.
As an added bonus, reduced fuel consumption also leads
to lower emissions of CO2, NOx and SOx. If the plant operates
under a cap-and-trade system this will cut operating costs
even further. A 150,000 bpd refinery can easily cut CO2
emissions by 50,000 tons per year when improving heat
recovery in the crude pre-heat train. This translates to
$1,000,000 savings in emission costs.
The theory of relativity
When Einstein received his Nobel Prize in 1922 it was despite, not
because, of his theory of relativity. The theory was too “creative” to
be considered proper physics in the eyes of the Nobel committee
and after many years of controversy they awarded him for his work
on the photoelectric effect instead.
But time proved Einstein right, and today one of the formulas in his
theory has become a celebrity on its own. The formula states that
matter can be transformed into energy, and one can calculate that
100 kg of matter (any kind) contains enough energy to operate all
refineries in the US for a year (roughly 1019 J or 1016 Btu).
Reynolds number
The Reynolds number was introduced by George Stokes in 1851 as a means of describing
the characteristics of a flow. A flow with high turbulence and lots of small eddies has a high
Reynolds number and a smooth, laminar flow has a low Reynolds number.
The flow in an Alfa Laval heat exchanger is highly turbulent and has a high Reynolds number.
High turbulence is one of the secrets behind the superior performance and compact size of
Alfa Laval’s welded plate heat exchangers. Turbulence makes heat transfer much more
efficient than in a shell-and-tube, causing more heat to be transferred per surface area.
Less maintenance
One of the key features of a compact heat exchanger is highly
turbulent flow. Apart from improving heat transfer, it also
means the heat exchangers clean themselves from fouling
and clogging residues. The self-cleaning effect is especially
large in spiral heat exchangers. The single-channel design
causes fouling deposits to be flushed away wherever they start
to build up. This means spiral heat exchangers are the perfect
choice for heavy-fouling duties, e.g. when cooling fluid catalytic
cracking (FCC) bottom products or visbroken residues.

Less downtime and lower cleaning costs €1,650,000

The downtime for maintenance is minimal for spiral heat By exchanging their 12 existing shell-and-tubes
for 8 Alfa Laval spiral heat exchangers, a
exchangers. The self-cleaning effect leads to longer service Russian oil refinery saved €1,650,000 per year
in cleaning costs. The payback period was
intervals, and the easy-access design makes cleaning quick. one year.

Alfa Laval’s spiral heat exchangers are cleaned in place using

chemical or high-pressure cleaning. The whole process from
start to finish is typically carried out in less than two days.

Energy savings
Fouling also leads to higher energy consumption. Heat transfer
efficiency drops as fouling builds up, meaning the boiler or
burner has to provide more heat. Pumping the fluid through
a fouled heat exchanger also requires more power. Reduced
fouling will have a positive effect on energy bills, uptime and
cleaning costs.
Increased production
Debottlenecking
Many refineries have bottlenecks related to heating or cooling.
Investing in more efficient heat exchangers is often the best
way to resolve these limitations. The higher the efficiency of
the heat exchanger, the more heat can flow through it,
resulting in higher production capacity.

Maximum performance
Compact heat exchangers offer significantly higher capacity
per square meter floor space than shell-and-tubes. As
restrictions in space and building structures often apply,
switching to compact heat exchangers is a straightforward
way to boost production without having to rebuild the plant.

Less downtime
Compact heat exchangers require less downtime for
maintenance than shell-and-tubes, since service intervals
are longer and the cleaning process is faster.

+50%
A refinery in the Middle East increased
production capacity of its catalytic reforming
process by 50% when replacing 12 existing
shell-and-tubes with one Packinox heat
exchanger.
Derivatives
In mathematics a so-called derivative describes the rate of change in one quantity as a
response to changes in another quantity, e.g. how the production rate of a visbreaking
unit increases with higher thermal efficiency.
The first to use derivatives to compute rates of change was the Indian astronomer and
mathematician Bhaskara II in the 11th century. Roughly 500 years later, Isaac Newton and
Gottfried Leibniz developed the use of derivatives even further as they independently laid
the foundations for the field in mathematics known as calculus. The derivative is an
important part of calculus and is heavily used in science, engineering and economics.
The first law of thermodynamics
Thermodynamics deals with the use and conversion of heat. The laws of thermodynamics are a set of
fundamental principles that govern much of the operation of all energy-intense plants. The first law of
thermodynamics states that the amount of energy in a system such as a distillation column depends
on how much heat and work are put in and taken out of the system. The more heat recovered and
reused within the system, the less has to be added. Increased heat recovery also leads to less energy
exiting the system, so the result is a reduced load on both heating and cooling systems.
Thermodynamics had a rapid development during the 19th century and was closely linked to the
growth of industrialism and its need for better steam engines. Some of the front figures were Sadi
Carnot, William Rankine, Rudolf Clausius, and Lord Kelvin.
Lower investment costs
Lower costs for the heat exchanger
The required heat transfer area is much smaller for a compact
heat exchanger than for a corresponding shell-and-tube.
This means much less material is needed to build the unit,
which has a positive effect on price. Especially so when
tough conditions call for exotic materials such as special
alloys or titanium.

Lower installation costs

Installations costs can be cut considerably by using welded
plate heat exchangers instead of shell-and-tubes when

-70%
expanding plant capacity. The foundations can be made
smaller and the heat exchangers are easier to fit into existing
structures thanks to their compact nature.
An evaluation performed by one of Alfa Laval’s
Lower costs for utility systems customers showed that their equipment costs
would be 70-80% lower if using Alfa Laval
Before investing in new utility systems such as cooling Compablocs instead of shell-and-tubes on an
atmospheric distillation column.
towers and boilers, it is wise to see if the same result can
be achieved by increasing heat recovery efficiency instead.
Recovering more energy in the process often leads to
reduced heating and cooling needs. Switching to compact
heat exchangers means production can be increased while
using the same utility systems.
Reliability
The best of both worlds
Compact heat exchangers combine the benefits of tradi-
tional plate heat exchangers with those of shell-and-tubes.
Alfa Laval’s compact heat exchangers bring you high
efficiency, compact size, minimum maintenance, low pres-
sure drops and the ability to operate at high pressures and
temperatures.
The all-welded, robust design ensures trouble-free
performance that does not change over time. Many of Alfa
Laval’s heat exchangers have been in operation for decades
and are still delivering top results.
$3,000,000 A long-term commitment
A refinery in the US recovered an extra 7 MW
by installing two Alfa Laval Compabloc heat Alfa Laval has a long-term commitment to its customers.
exchangers in the crude pre-heat train in one
of its refineries. Savings in fuel and emission
We offer service and maintenance programs that are
costs totalled $3,000,000 and the payback tailored to each customer’s specific needs. Most of our
period was four months.
products can be regularly upgraded so they will not only
keep their performance, but actually improve it over their
lifespans.
Newton’s law of universal gravitation
In 1687, Isaac Newton published his famous gravitational law in “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”.
For over 200 years the formula was one of the indisputable facts of physics and gravity was considered to be a
force, just like any other mechanical force.
The next step to deeper knowledge didn’t come until Albert Einstein questioned Newton’s law and proposed that
gravity should be seen as curving of space. As experimentalists caught up with Einstein’s thinking they proved him
right when they showed that large stars actually bend the light passing by them since they cause a curve in space.
All development comes from challenging established truths and industry standards, and constantly trying to
improve. This is equally true if you are trying to develop a better theory of gravitation, or if you are trying to
improve the profitability of your refinery.
 Shell
To improve overall performance in its semi-
regenerative catalytic reforming process, the
Shell refinery at Berre-l’Etang in France replaced
12 shell-and-tube feed/effluent heat exchangers
with a single Packinox unit. This resulted in a
33% increase in capacity and reduced pressure
drop from 4 to 1.5 bars. The improved heat
recovery also led to substantial savings on
energy and lower emissions for the fired heater.

Capacity increase: 33%

Energy savings: 5.6 MW (19.1 MMBtu/h)
Annual emission savings: €300,000
A Packinox refinery installation Payback time: 12 months

Rosneft
In 2006, the Rosneft Tuapse refinery in South-
ern Russia decided to improve energy recovery
in one of its three crude pre-heat trains. A total
of three Compabloc heat exchangers were
installed. The first replaced two shell-and-tube
units, and the other two were installed to deal
with new energy recovery duties. Among the
energy-saving objectives achieved was an
8–10°C (14–18°F) increase in furnace inlet
temperature of the crude. This resulted in both Energy savings: 1.3 MW (4.4 MMBtu/h)
significant energy savings and reductions in Annual emission savings: €100,000
emission from the heater. Payback time: 24 months
 Tamoil
To improve heat recovery at its refinery at
Collombey in Switzerland, Tamoil decided to
recover energy from the atmospheric-distilla-
tion-tower overhead vapours. Installation at
the top of the tower was no problem since
Tamoil decided to use four compact and light
weight Alfa Laval condensers to handle the
task. Tamoil now recovers 16.5 MW (56.3
MMBtu/h) of energy and uses it to preheat
both crude and boiler feed water. This has led
to savings on fuel consumption and lower
emissions from the fired heater.

Total Energy savings: 16.5 MW (56.3 MMBtu/h)

Annual emission savings: €1,000,000
Total experienced major problems with two Payback time: 7 months
shell-and-tube heat exchangers serving as
bottom coolers in the fluid catalytic cracking
(FCC) process at its refinery in Leuna, Germany.
Each unit had to be taken out for cleaning and
service after only 10 days of operation, meaning
one of the units was constantly being serviced.
To eliminate this costly situation, Total de-
cided to replace the units with two Alfa Laval
spiral heat exchangers. These required no
service at all over 8 years of non-stop opera-
tion, and are now included in the plant’s stand-
ard 5-year maintenance programme.

Annual savings in cleaning: €180,000

Payback time: 24 months
Alfa Laval in brief
Alfa Laval is a leading global provider of
specialized products and engineering solutions.

Our equipment, systems and services are dedicated

to helping customers to optimize the performance
of their processes. Time and time again.

We help our customers to heat, cool, separate and

transport products such as oil, water, chemicals,
beverages, foodstuffs, starch and
pharmaceuticals.

Our worldwide organization works closely with

customers in almost 100 countries to help them
stay ahead.

How to contact Alfa Laval

Contact details for all countries are continually
updated on our web site. Please visit
www.alfalaval.com to access the information.

www.alfalaval.com/refinery

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