Make the big pivot

Jim Montague

Compañía Española de Petróleos, S.A.U. (CEPSA) recently started coprocessing bio-feedstocks at its Energy Park CEPSA La Rábida refinery in Huelva, Spain. It also adopted five-year decarbonization plan in 2021, and is one of more than 50 worldwide oil companies that endorsed the World Bank’s Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 program. Operating since 1967, La Rábida was expanded in 2010 from 100,000 b/d to 220,000 b/d.

The refinery operates a hydrogen network that’s integrated with an adjacent petrochemicals complex. The network has three hydrogen producers, including a platformer, aromax catalytic reformer and a steam reformer. The network’s main consumers are a hydrocracker and multiple hydrotreaters and petrochemical units that convert toluene to benzene and benzene to cyclohexane. Each consumer requires different hydrogen purity level.

To reduce its CO₂ emissions and environmental impact, CEPSA recently optimized its hydrogen network to:

• Maximize utilization of hydrocarbon and petrochemical units, depending on economics;
• Minimize hydrogen losses to flare or fuel gas and reduce CO₂ emissions from hydrogen production;
• Increase hydrogen feed to hydrocracker and other hydrogen-consuming units;
• Handle increased hydrogen required by bio-feedstock coprocessing; and
• Enable panel operators focus on more value-added activities.

 To read the full article see "Make the big pivot,” which originally appeared on Control, an Endeavor Business Media partner site.