Solvent Deasphalting units (SDA) are susceptible to all the fouling mechanisms present in other heavy processing units yet have the added complexity of higher pressure and complicated solvent recovery systems. Maximizing the lift while maintaining stable process conditions can be a challenge. Uniting the Refining Community around this process to prevent safety and reliability incidents is a logical addition to the goal of “More Production, Less Risk.”
Both traditional and supercritical solvent recovery units can benefit from the lessons learned from each configuration. Common ground around contractor internals, stripper recovery, heat exchanger fouling, and instrumentation will provide opportunities to prevent shutdowns and reduce exposure to personnel and equipment during maintenance.
Our approach to growing the SDA user’s group will be the same as it has been for delayed coking (DCU), fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), and resid hydrocracking (RHC). Namely, a boots on the ground approach to operations, engineering (technical support), maintenance (preventive, routine, and turnaround), inspection, and design (engineering, procurement, and construction) where we openly discuss issues and solutions that are common across the various licensors and unit configurations.
By gathering together as a community first, we find common ground and solutions then allow time to get into the very unit specific nuances with peers from other units globally. Many examples will be covered during the RefComm® SDA Conference.
We’ll use the RefComm® conference, webpages and social media to expand our network and build our SDA Community.
Contact us to offer a story about your SDA or other images and text content.
The header image by Mikulova is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slovnaft_-_residual_hydrocracking_(RHC).jpg
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