Refineries set records

Thanks to great cross-functional cooperation between teams, the two refineries have had a very successful 12 months, setting records for production and throughput of petrol, jet fuel and diesel. This was achieved even though operational issues in November and December meant some process units had to be shut down for repairs.

“We should look back with a sense of achievement on what we’ve accomplished,” says Caltex General Manager Refining Brian Waywell. “Operationally the period from mid-2006 until October 2007 was our best ever for utilisation.”

Lytton shutdown ‘removed barriers’

An important factor behind Brisbane-based Lytton refinery’s success was a reformer shutdown earlier in the year to repair a failed transformer. (The reformer unit converts crude oil to higher octane product.) The Lytton Area North team under superintendent Mike Jennings took advantage of the down time to make modifications that lifted steam limits, improved effluent cooling and hydrogen purity and removed other production barriers. The work resulted in the plant running more reliably with consistently higher throughputs.

“We were also able to complete a number of important tie-ins for the project for the new diesel hydrotreater which avoided a later costly shutdown,” explains Michael. “This saved the company millions of dollars and is a credit to those involved across many different disciplines.”

Lytton’s Area South team was able to break a daily throughput record for the big FCCU petrol production unit (the fluid catalytic cracking unit) – when it ran for a week at a record 97.4 per cent capacity. Area South superintendent Brad Robertson points to better use of the “constraint busting” process as a reason for this success. “It essentially focuses on good communication and execution between departments,” explains Brad.

Lytton refinery Production Manager Paul Vardanega agrees. “Excellent focus and the right feed types allowed the Lytton production team to run the plant at record rates – the whole area was accountable for helping to get the most out of every last drop of crude.”

Kurnell’s rate hike

At the Kurnell refinery in Sydney, four factors contributed to the refinery’s strong performance in the past year, says Production Manager Ray Greenup.

The crude injection system was improved, with engineers making changes to pipework and manifolds to facilitate a better mix of crude oil stocks. This allows the injection of more product into the units, says Ray. “In the past heavy crudes would restrict rates. Now by being able to mix crude in different tanks we can get a higher rate.”

The recently introduced crude scheduling tool, Orion, helped the refinery’s supply and planning people to plan better crude mixes, and excellent teamwork between Supply and Planning, Technical Services and Production meant teams could set aggressive targets.

Representatives from each group meet to set the maximum rates they believe the process plants can run using an approach known as P20 (meaning 20 per cent probability). The information gathered at this meeting is fed to computers to model the target rates required for each plant. “Generally we had a very good result over the year,” says Ray.

Finally the Hydrogen Taskforce, a team of engineers and production people, was able to increase the amount of hydrogen available for the diesel hydrotreater, so it could run at maximum rates for most of the year.

How high?

Three 30-day rolling average throughput records were set at Kurnell. In the most recent the number one crude distillation unit recorded a rate of 398kL/hr in October. (The previous record was 388kL/hr.) Utilisation, a measure of how efficiently the refinery complex operates, also hit a record last July of 91.2 per cent. The previous record was 90.3 per cent.

At Lytton, the record weekly utilisation of 97.4 per cent occurred in the first half of November. A major record was broken when the daily FCCU rate reached 5,521 tonnes.

“While 2007 was a record year for production and utilisation it also showed that we could do better. 2008 is about getting the plant back into safe and reliable performance, continuing to reduce our risk profile and leveraging off our business partnerships to continue to push our performance into new territory,” says Lytton Refinery Manager Liam Tobin.

At Kurnell, the year ahead will be about executing the major diesel hydrotreater cluster shutdown with excellence and getting back into the excellent groove they were in last year, concludes Kurnell Refinery Manager Tip Huizenga.

“Stable, safe operations will then allow teams to focus more on our important risk reduction work.”

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