Energy Conservation - Refineries :: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited

Energy Conservation Measures implemented in the past include:
- • Adoption of co-generation principle for generation of steam / power, etc. which includes installation of FCCU CO - Boiler
- Modernization of Fired Heaters
- Maximization of crude preheat by optimization of Heat Exchanger Train using Pinch Technology
- Effective use of Waste Heat
- Modernization of Instrumentation and Advanced Control Strategies.

HPCL was one of the first oil companies in the country to initiate and implement full-fledged automation of its offsite facilities at both the Refineries. The facilities comprise of the following:
- Automation of tank gauging & inventory management system
- Advanced on-line blend control
- Continuous on-line monitoring of quality of critical products / streams
- Accurate measurement and monitoring of custody transfer operations
- Continuous monitoring of critical off - site transfer pumps
The Offsite Automation facilities have been designed to reduce loss, enhance quality, optimize allocation of various refinery streams to improve overall yield of distillation as well as product accounting. The new projects have usually been implemented in multistage processes taking updates from every step to avoid any untoward loss of efficiency in the overall performance.

As a part of these projects, customized software packages have been widely used and customized for implementation in refinery projects. The software have helped to decide optimal crude mix based on prevailing prices & demand of various products and optimize plant performance and product slate to get maximum outputs within the stipulated capacity.

The projects implemented in recent years for the maintenance of energy efficiency have been path breaking in the Indian perspective. HPCL has paved the way for efficient operational methods in the Indian context to be followed by organizations for years to come.
A detailed Hydrocarbon loss study has been carried out by M/s British Petroleum for Mumbai Refinery and the various recommendations have been implemented.

Both Refineries have carried out energy conservation activities to improve ENCON performance as details given below :
- Sonic Soot Blowers have been installed at boiler house for using the kinetic energy of sound waves to avoid soot deposition. This results in greater steam savings as compared to the conventional steam soot blower.
- On-line oxygen analyzers on furnaces / boilers have been provided to control excess air in the refineries. These instruments measure the oxygen content of flue gas continuously. The checking of oxygen content in flue gas helps in improving the furnace efficiencies.
- Ultrasonic Flare meters have been provided to measure the flow rates as well as molecular weights of different hydrocarbons going to the flare. This helps to identify the source, type and quantity of hydrocarbon going to flare.
- Mass flow meters have been installed in various furnaces / heaters for monitoring individual furnace fuel consumption.
- CCTV for round-the-clock viewing / controlling of flare stack has been installed in both refineries.
- Electronic themoprobes have been installed for registering accurate tank temperature from time to time. The accurate measurement of temperature reduces the flaws in accounting due to faults in the reading of temperature which were earlier reflected in hydrocarbon loss.
- A CO - Boiler is being installed as part of FCCU - I revamp under the second Expansion Project of Visakh Refinery. The CO - Boiler will recover heat from FCCU flue gas and the required amount of steam.