Refinery operating costs

The above objective represents a minimization of the annualized cost which comprises crude oil cost, refineries operating cost, refineries intermediate exchange piping cost, production system expansion cost, and export revenue. The operating cost of each process is assumed to be proportional to the process inlet flow and is expressed on a yearly basis. 

Table 35. Typical breakdown of refinery operating costs.

These many influences cause wide variations in operating costs. The costs recorded here were taken in many instances from actual plant records for plants situated all over the country and from sources too numerous to list here. The costs for sales, advertising, research, general administration expense, depr,eciation, taxes, and profit are not included in the general operating costs, but the depreciation and taxes are included in the complete refinery operating costs (except when noted otherwise). 

Fio. 23-1. Variations in refinery operating costs (1956) as a function of crude-oil gravity, sulfur, sourness, octane number, and amount of cracking. Gulf C oast 30,000 bpd refineries, ( lid points indicate the production of lubricants or wax.) idu Gas J.)... 

Table 23-4. Standard Realization Method Refinery Operating Costs FOR A Few Typical Oils (Gulp Coast 1956)...

Although numerous cases have been documented where petroleum refineries have simultaneously reduced pollution outputs and operating costs through pollution prevention techniques, there are often barriers to their im-plementation. The primary barrier to most pollution prevention projects is cost. Many pollution prevention options simply do not pay for themselves, or the economics often appear marginal. Corporate investments typically must earn an adequate return on invested capital for the shareholders and some pollution prevention options at some facilities may not meet the requirements set by company policies. 

An old variation of the conversion type is a catalytic combination unit. Development of this scheme was necessitated by the rising cost of refinery construction after World War II and by the great demand for capital for postwar expansion. The scheme reduced the investment and operating costs for refining equipment. The basic feature of the combination unit lies in the integration of the fractionation facilities of the reduced crude distillation and catalytic cracking sections. 

Operating costs vary a great deal from one refinery to another. Factors include the types of processes and... 

GC-Computer System Nowadays, a large number of data-processing-computer-aided instruments for the automatic calculation of various peak parameters, for instance relative retention, composition, peak areas etc., can be conveniently coupled with GC-systems. A commercially available fairly sophisticated computer system of such type are available abundantly that may be capable of undertaking load upto 100 gas-chromatographs with ample data-storage facilities. In fact, the installation such as multi GC-systems in the routine analysis in oil-refineries and bulk pharmaceutical industries, and chemical based industries have tremendously cut-down their operating cost of analysis to a bare minimum. 

Yet waste elimination continues to elude many companies in every sector, including the refinery section and activity from refinery waste (which is a function of their production system design). It may not matter how a refiner categorizes the waste or how the refiner chooses to pursue waste elimination. One thing remains constant that once identified, waste can be eliminated. There are models and structures that allow a refiner to identify and eliminate waste to increase productivity, and hence cost structures, that have a direct impact on refinery operations and, more than all else, profitability. Waste elimination through identification (by judicious analysis) and treatment subscribe to the smooth operation of a refinery. 

In the incessant scramble to reduce capital and operating costs, chemical engineers adapted a related technique for removing benzene from benzene concentrate. For years, absorption, a gas/liquid extraction process, has been used for separations in refinery gas plants and natural gas plants. It only took a technique for using the special absorbents, the same ones used in solvent extraction, to reduce the complexity of the equipment and the processing costs. See Figure 2-5)... 

A set of products cfr CFR to be produced at multiple refinery sites i I is given. Each refinery consists of different production units m that can operate at different operating modes p P. An optimal feedstock from different available crudes cr CR is desired. Furthermore, the process network across the multiple refineries is connected in a finite number of ways and an integration superstructure is defined. Market product prices, operating cost at each refinery, and product demands are assumed to be known. 

According to DTC, typical operating costs range from 50 to 100 per feed ton (0.91 metric tons) for refinery-type wastes, and 100 to 200 per feed ton for soil remediation. DTC notes that estimates are feed and product quality sensitive and site specific. Remediation of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-contaminated soil must also take into account the cost of destroying the concentrated PCB product (D110410, p. 7). 

If we consider the typical 1950 gasolines mentioned above, with and without tetraethyllead, any reasonable method of estimation shows that the cost of the increased antiknock quality obtained by tetraethyllead is substantially less than the cost would have been for the same increase by refining operations. The almost universal use of tetraethyllead in gasoline is in itself a demonstration of its economy. Furthermore, its use permits flexibility in day-to-day refinery operations required to make gasoline of a given specification. 

Installation of more conversion equipment both in new refinery construction and as additions to existing hydroskimming facilities is already a trend. The production of more naphtha by providing new conversion units would, of course, make the additional naphtha more costly. In this connection a number of studies both our own and others (4) have attempted to determine the cost of incremental naphtha production. These indicate that in typically sized European hydroskimming refinery (operating on either Libyan or Arabian crudes) gasoline plus petrochemical naphtha yields can be increased by about 50% by installation of catalytic cracking. Based on today s prices for the other refinery products, the cost... 

---