Evaluation and Feasibility of Using Heat Exchanger in Kerosene Unit of Persian Gulf Star Oil Refinery for Sour Naphtha Service

One of the strategic goals in the Persian Gulf Star Oil Refinery has been to change the use of the Kerosene Hydrotreater with the Sour Naphtha service. The purpose of this study is to simulate and evaluate the shell and tube heat exchangers at the outlet of kerosene Hydrotreater unit’s reactor for Naphtha service which has been studied as part of a massive, change usage project. The simulation results with the HTRI software Version 6.32, showed that in change of useage with the new service andthe without considering fouling, the amount of heat transfer ofthe mentioned heat exchangers will be sufficient for heat transfer of 22.2 Mega Watt. However, due to the fouling of the heat exchangers andthe need of the reactor to reach a temperature of 310 degrees Celsius and the temperature conditions at the end of catalyst life due to coke, it was inevitable that worst operating conditions had to be considered.The simulation results showed that heat transfer surface area of heat exchangers must be increased by 24% to achieve the actual operating conditions.Suggestions for compensating the heat transfer surface area, including increasing the number of tube to 1370 branches for each of heat exchangers, Increase length of the tubes to 6400 mm, changethe shell structure from type E to F or adding a new heat exchanger similar to the existing system, in series with those, was proposed that latter was considered as a more economical solution.