Facet Clay Treater Cartridge Housing Helps Refinery's Process

Kari Kohonen, Valin's Strategic Account Manager - Refining, Oil and Gas Specialist

Valin worked with a refinery that was processing approximately 145,000 barrels (5.7 million gallons) of crude oil per day enough to fill a 17-foot-deep swimming pool the size of a football field. 

From this crude oil, the refinery produces many useful products -- including three grades of gasoline, fuel oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel, propane, butane, petroleum coke that is used by companies that refine high-grade aluminum, sulfur, and a petrochemical called nonene.

The refinery has a 2 Column Jet Fuel Clay Treater that came online in 1960 with a treat rate of 750 GPM.  This technology is very inefficient and outdated.  The nature of this old design does not optimize the contact time of the Jet Fuel with the Clay and often results in Channeling through the Media. 

The refinery was forced to put one of their projects on hold and as a result this freed up capital dollars for other process optimization and environmental/safety projects.  Valin worked with the refinery and contracted engineering personnel and identified this opportunity as a fit for all criteria process optimization, environmental and safety.  This meant that the project became a high priority for the customer and was fast tracked. Opportunity identification, specification, design and funding all took place within 6 months.

The process to change out the spent Clay and the Support Media Rock in these antiquated vessels is extremely time consuming and costly (a typical change out takes 10 days with an estimated cost of $20,000 + dollars in labor and vacuum truck fees alone, not including the replacement Clay and Support Media). During a change out the vessels are open to the atmosphere and emit an extremely high concentration of Jet Fuel Fumes and VOC's into the environment.

Valin presented a solution utilizing a Facet Clay Treater Cartridge Housing with a removable Cartridge Bundle Assembly. This technology solves a number of problems with process efficiency, environmental and safety concerns: 

  1. Optimizes contact of the Jet Fuel through a Cartridge thus maximizing the effectiveness of the Clay Media
  2. Higher Flow Rate of 1050 GPM to allow for future Refinery Process Increases
  3. Reduces environmental waste as the Cartridge Clay Media is used more effectively to achieve a higher quality of product at a higher flow rate (estimated that there will be a reduction of over 50 tons of Hazardous Waste produced annually)
  4. Facets compact Vessel design and Cartridge Bundle Assembly minimizes operator, maintenance and environmental exposure and VOC emissions as the unit can be changed out in approximately 4 to 6 hours instead of the 10 days it took for the old unit (healthier for the personnel and the environment)
  5. Eliminates the need for a Vacuum Truck thus eliminating hazardous waste and risk in mobilizing and staging the truck within an operating refinery environment
  6. Maintenance Savings of approximately $35,000 + in Labor and Vacuum Truck Costs
  7. Up Time / Run Time is maximized by an estimated 18 days annually thus generating additional production and revenue for the refinery


Valin was able to optimize the refinery's process, eliminated hazardous waste and VOCs in the environment and made it safer for all personnel.


Source URL: https://www.valin.com/resources/case-studies/facet-clay-treater-cartridge-housing-helps-refinerys-process