EXAMPLES OF IMPLEMENTATION OF ENERGY-CONSERVATION APPROACHES IN OIL AND GAS PROCESSING

Abstract

The work is devoted to solving topical issues of energy and resource conservation (ERC) and increasing energy efficiency for hydrocarbon processing enterprises, considering the high energy intensity of industry process facilities, which is due to both objective reasons and irrational use of fuel and energy resources and direct heat losses. The goals and objectives of this work are to generalize and classify ERC approaches, proposals, methodologies and methods as applied to the hydrocarbon processing industry with an analysis of cases of their implementation, considering the “bottlenecks” of typical process facilities in the industry. The paper analyses the proposed areas and approaches to solving ERC problems in oil and gas processing, in particular, the implementation of a systemic
approach, decomposition principles, thermal integration methods, including between different-level objects, the use of pinch analysis to assess the potential for heat recovery and optimize heat exchange systems, the use of digitalization methods and computer modeling technologies, etc. As an example of energy and resource conservation, a rectification unit of a gas fractionation unit with a heat pump in its composition instead of the traditional approach to creating a temperature regime in the column is considered. It has been shown that this will reduce energy costs due to heat loss to the atmosphere, the use of its own flow as a coolant with savings in water vapor resources and the cost of cooling the product in air coolers. Together, this will lead to a more rational use of the process facility’s own resources.