Up- grading of an Iranian Refinery Scheme by LP Modeling

Optimization of a typical crude oil refinery of Iran by linear programming is performed. Crude oil assay, capacity of process units, feed characteristics to each process unit, products quality and utility data for actual conditions of refinery accurately are collected and assumed as the basis of modeling.Maximum profitability of refinery is assumed as the objective function of optimization. To meet Euro 2005 specifications of products, Maximum gasoline production and minimum production of fuel oil, three process alternatives have been considered.First model is developed based on Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) process of heavy vacuum gas oil and de – asphalted oil from new solvent Deasphalting unit. Second model is optimized by incorporating a Delayed Coking unit in the existing scheme. and the third scheme is developed based on Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC). Techno – economical comparison of these three models have shown that the combination of FCC with Solvent Deasphalting Unit (SDA) is the most promising scheme for this typical refinery.