Process enhancement
Evolving solutions, dedicated expertise
We are a top-tier equipment rental company operating within the petrochemicals and refining sector with a dedicated process engineering team with extensive design and operational plant expertise.
Our Aggreko Process Services (APS) group has technical professionals like those of large engineering firms who work with our client's engineers to offer specialized solutions beyond just a rental.
Our clients often calculate the size and type of rental equipment needed. Often, equipment, especially temperature control equipment, is selected without much detailed analysis and a "guess." As we are technology experts at our core who understand the intricacies of operating refineries and petrochemical plants, the APS group dissects the problem at hand and looks beyond the immediate issue both upstream and downstream to optimize the complete system. With this approach, APS has generated benefit-to-cost ratios from 6:1 to as high as 40:1, some of the best in the industry. Many of these projects are detailed within this APS webpage.
With this unrivaled expertise and a proven track record, our services ensure your production rates are not compromised through bottlenecks, seasonal changes, or any other issue that could limit your process yield and efficiency.
A perfect pairing with a focus on ROI
Learn more about our proven Process Enhancement applications below, where we showcase our approach to solving particular problems.
Rental Solutions Maximize Summertime Distillation Column Condenser Performance
Seasonal weather changes hurt summertime production rates in the refining and petrochemicals industry. Efficient condenser cooling is essential for maximizing throughput and for maintaining product purities. However, the hotter it is outside, the more challenging the heat removal process becomes. So, what can you do to maintain steady production all year round rather than suffering losses caused by warmer weather?
Some of the issues we’ve been able to address are: throughput loss, product cut point giveaway, excessive loss of propane to fuel gas, insufficient sulfur removal from fuel gas in amine treating units, inadequate column overhead pressure control, increases in central fractionator column pressure that increase back-pressure to feed preheat furnaces or reactors, overloaded wet gas compressors and downstream gas plant column flooding
Our solutions can be designed and installed safely in weeks without intrusive hot taps, interruption in column operation, or need for an outage.
Beyond the rental
Learn how rental equipment can help avoid lower production rates, unplanned outages and breakdown maintenance.
How rental equipment can make you money
One common issue understanding how deploying rental equipment to solve process problems can make them money. Aggreko can help keep plants fully operational during maintenance programs in downstream units.
Winter Gas Blend Optimization
Regardless of your current or future refinery production rates, Aggreko can help you increase profitability during the switch over to winter blend gasoline by upgrading butanes to gasoline.
Alleviating FCC Regenerator Main Air Blower Limitations
Air blower limitations constrain many Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units. Aggreko can provide a temporary cooling solution that uses external mechanical refrigeration to chill the inlet air before entering the regenerator. This allows more coke to be burned off the catalyst.
Alky reactor cooling
Aggreko is currently working with our customers on their Alkylation units where process cooling, and reactor temperatures are key variables in the overall success and profitability of the Alky.
Rapid Reactor Cool-Down: Addressing a Common Turnaround Bottleneck
Operating temperatures in many refinery processes, such as hydrotreaters, hydrocrackers, and reformers, can be very high. Once a plant begins an initial maintenance shutdown, all of this catalyst (often hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds) must be cooled from high operating temperatures down to near ambient temperatures. Given the amount of catalyst and reactor metal mass, this takes time and is very often the bottleneck, or is on the 'critical path,' for the complete turnaround.
Aggreko has patented a reactor cool-down process that can help shorten the time required to cool the system on this critical path.
Business Continuity
We help you sustain your production rates, either when your own equipment fails or is underperforming, allowing seamless operations, even when extending the time between turnarounds.
Fouled HEX in olefin plants
Aggreko has helped plants improve the performance of their quench column during the summertime by providing additional cooling.
Safe tank storage
By providing rundown cooling or by cooling the tank itself, Aggreko has helped sustain production rates, as well as improve the safety and reliability of our customers’ operation and avoid potential safety and environmental violations.
Performing maintenance outside of TA window
If an exchanger is underperforming or about to break, the most common options are either to cut rates or to take an unplanned outage for repairs. These hurt plant profitability seriously. Aggreko helps plants by providing temporary heat transfer equipment.