View of a modern, lit-up refinery at night at a distance.

Reactor cooling makes savings

Reactor cooling makes savings

  • The Challenge

    A smarter reactor cooling system to save turnaround time and costs

  • The Solution

    Cooling system in three days and installed fast

  • The Impact

    Cool-down time slashed, money saved, and system adopted for future use

Client:Gulf Coast refinery

Location:USA

Sectors:Petrochemical and refining

The Challenge

Save costs with faster reactor cooling

A Gulf Coast oil refinery needed to swap outa spent hydrotreater catalyst. During this process the hydrotreater reactor vessel needs to be cooled from 200°F to 80°F, and every moment spent cooling the vessel costs our customer money.

On previous turnarounds, the refinery had used liquid nitrogen to cool the vessel. But nitrogen is expensive and takes several days to cool the vessel down to 80°F. We were called in to find a better cooling process.

+900,000 kgWeight of reactor vessel
+450,000 kgWeight of catalyst
11 hoursSpeed of cool-down
200 (93°C) Initial temperature
80(27°C) Cooled-down temperature

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The Solution

A new method ready for approval in three days

The Aggreko Process Services (APS) team thrives on solving complex problems like these. Within three days, we had designed a hydrotreater reactor cooling process that would get the job done much faster than the liquid nitrogen method. With approval from the refinery, our temporary heat exchangers and chillers were quickly installed.

We tested everything prior to shipping, and made sure the on-site assembly was leak-free. Our team was on-hand round-the-clock during the cooling process, making sure the job was completed safely and without incident.

 

“The speed of our cool-down and the money saved were both huge wins for the refinery.”

Aggreko ,

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