IOC restarts newly upgraded coker at Barauni refinery

Robert Brelsford
Downstream Technology Editor

India's state-owned Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) has completed the revamp and recommissioning of the 600,000-tonne/year Coker A at its 6-million tpy Barauni refinery in Begusarai District, Bihar.

Following an overhaul that included the first-ever commercial installation of delayed coking technology jointly developed by IOC and Engineers India Ltd., the unit completed the startup and received initial feed to its coke drum on Jan. 25, IOC said.

While it did not alter the unit's existing processing capacity, the technology upgrade and modernization project involved physical changes to the coker's hardware equivalent to construction of a grassroots unit, the operator said.

Major hardware changes included:

• Replacement of four 30-year-old reactors with two new larger reactors manufactured of a higher metallurgy that better equips them to process crude with higher sulfur levels.

• Removal of quench column.

• Installation of automation systems, including heading-unheading devices, coke-drum level indicators, and coke-cutting system.

• Unidentified modifications to the main fractionator.

IOC previously confirmed the project additionally would entail installation of five heat exchangers in the coker's preheat circuit, as well as decommissioning of one of its two furnaces so that, post-revamp, the unit would operate using a single furnace.

The coker revamp, IOC said, is primarily intended to improve reliability, safe operation, and environmental performance of the unit. Alongside lowering emissions, elimination of the coker's second furnace also will contribute to reductions in the manufacturing plant's fuel and power-consumption costs.

In May 2015, IOC told India's Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change overhaul of Barauni's Coker A would cost 4.8 billion rupees.

The Coker A revamp comes as part of IOC's Barauni high-sulfur crude maximization project, which also includes the proposed installation of a bitumen processing plant equipped with proprietary Biturox technology licensed by Porner Ingenieur GMBH.

Initially scheduled for startup during first-quarter 2016, the 150,000-tpy Biturox plant was under implementation and slated for commissioning by September 2016, IOC said.

IOC also is proceeding with plans to invest 82.87 billion rupees in a project that will involve expanding Barauni's crude processing capacity to 9 million tpy and adding a downstream polypropylene unit at the site by 2020-21.

Another project to expand the refinery's production of Bharat Stage (BS) IV-grade fuels-equivalent to Euro 4-quality fuels-also remains under way at Barauni. IOC plans for the Barauni BS-IV to be fully commissioned by March 2018.

Designed to enable the refinery to produce 100% BS-IV gasoline and diesel upon its completion, the project was to involve the following:

• Modifications to an existing 300,000-tpy naphtha hydrotreating unit that will boost capacity to about 470,000 tpy.

• Revamp of an existing 300,000-tpy catalytic reforming unit that will boost capacity to 470,000 tpy.

• Revamp of an existing 2.2 million-tpy diesel hydrotreating that will increase capacity to 3.3 million tpy.

• Installation of a new naphtha splitter unit that will raise capacity to 760,000 tpy from a current 464,000 tpy.

• Installation of a new Axens-licensed Prime G+ selective desulfurization unit for the treatment of FCC gasoline production that will lift capacity to 760,000 tpy from a current 400,000 tpy.