KBR, Inc. (Houston; www.kbr.com) says that HollyFrontier Corp. (HFC) has successfully started up two dividing-wall columns (DWC) at their El Dorado Refinery, Kansas. These grassroots and revamp column startups for HFC apply KBR’s Distill-Max technology and add to KBR’s portfolio of successful Distill-Max technology implementations.
For the grassroots column, KBR’s advanced DWC technology, Distill-Max Plus, helped HFC to reduce CAPEX and OPEX in their “MSAT II Compliance Naphtha Fractionation Project”. KBR’s design is the World’s first commercial four-product DWC for a petroleum-refinery application. KBR’s Distill-Max Plus design rewarded HFC with a column area reduction of 25% and energy savings of 30% for the grassroots naphtha fractionator when compared to the requirements for a conventional column design, says KBR.
For the revamp column, KBR utilized its DWC technology, Distill-Max, to provide a unique design to repurpose an existing column in the overheads section of a crude unit. The revamp of the existing column to a DWC realized a significant improvement in the separation efficiency, while achieving a 25% reduction in the energy requirement to remove butanes from the straight run naphtha when compared to a conventional three-product column solution.
KBR has provided the complete technical solution to HFC, comprising the basic design and the supply of column trays and internals for both projects since 2013.