TECHNOVACUUM

Vacuum by the new technology

Evarestov S. Vacuum of new technology. "Soviet Bashkiria" Newspaper. 06.12.1997.
Еварестов С. Вакуум - по новой технологии // Газета "Советская Башкирия". - 06.12.1997.

Article in Russian (click to enlarge)

ENGLISH VERSION

VACUUM BY THE NEW TECHNOLOGY

A year ago joint-stock company "Ufaneftekhim" introduced vacuum hydro-circulation unit (developed by "Technovacuum" Research and Production Association) on the basis of AVT-4 (Atmospheric-vacuum fractionation unit).

"It gave us a great deal of relief, says S. Mingarayev, chief technologist of JSC "Ufaneftekhim". "Classical scheme of crude oil rectification, which we were using during a long time, uses extremely complicated and cumbersome system of vapor ejecting pumps for vacuum creating. Besides, that scheme uses water for vapor condensation. The whole bunch of vapor, water, condensate and heated up oil creates such an aggressive environment that even stainless steel can not stand for a long time. As a result, vacuum ejector system worked effectively for only about three months. Repair of the system is a very complicated, expensive and time- and labour- consuming procedure, connected with assembling and disassembling of equipment. That's why we had to have two systems to keep the process of rectification going. While one system is under repair, the other is working. The system is using water recycling, which causes quite a lost of oil. Taking into account that the plant rectificates about 8-10 million tonnes of crude oil per year, the yearly loss of product was enormous".

The new system of vacuum creating, proposed by "Technovacuum" 's specialists, possesses a large number of advantages compared to the classical one. Firstly, it doesn't need neither water nor steam. It is simple by construction and convenient in exploitation. It uses own product of the installation - diesel oil - as a working liquid. It's being evacuated from the atmospheric column, cooled and pumped up back to the system by the closed circuit. The system produces no spillage to atmosphere or waste water, i.e. hydro-circulating vacuum creating system is completely enviromentally clean. Besides, using the hydro-circulating aggregate provides a substantial economic effect - it saves scores of thousands tonnes of crude oil. More than that: if the old system needed at least four repairs per year and complete renovation once in two years, the system works for a year without any repair and seems not to need any maintenance right until the general repair of the AVT-4 (Atmospheric vacuum fractionation unit) itself. On top of that, the aggregate is capable of creating more deep vacuum in rectification column, i.e., the process can be operated more smooth, which means more efficiently. And still, there is another advantage of the system - it's safety of the unit's exploitation. No need to stress it's importance in the term of working with flammable oil products.

All the above advantages are proved with figures. Every hour an ejector vacuum system of one unit were wasting 5.5 tonnes of vapor. According to the calculation, refusing the ejector system saved 1.9 billion rubles (about 317 000 USD) is approximately one year. Avoiding usage of recycled water gave about 60 000 USD during the same period of time. Decrease of cruel oil losses and increase of output of vacuum gas oil for further processing for approximately 39 tonnes brought about 4.5 billion rubles (750 000 USD). Basing on those three factors only, we saved more than 6.7 billion rubles (1 117 000 USD). We have to minus 416.4 mln rubles (69 500 USD) for increase in power costs for electrical drive of hydro-circulating unit. But it is actually nothing compared to the profit. The rest of the sum is quite enough for designing and buying two hydro-circulating aggregates. One aggregate covers its cost in 5 months.

Note that we didn't take into account decrease in costs for enviroment protection, corrosion wasted pipes replacement, and decrease of costs for repair, which will give us scores of million rubles per year. (The existing system takes enormous amount of steel pipes, metallic constructions other materials, hours of working time for repair of both main and supplement systems 4 times a year.)
It is clear that the economy will be even more substantial, when we supply all of our units with the new aggregates and refuse completely the outdated classical scheme of vacuum creating. By the way, we have already started up one more aggregate on the AVT-3 unit. Next year we plan to install the aggregate on AVT-1. After that we can completely forget very cumbersome system of the water block, which we need today for ejector vacuum systems.

Note that replacing classical vacuum system with the new one is most rational after completion of exploitation time of equipment. Since it works for only two year and we need to buy all new equipment anyway, it is clear that we'd better invest in new hydro-circulating systems".

Back

Technovacuum © 2024