AM-01-19 INTEGRATED HYDROGEN SUPPLY- EXTEND YOUR REFINERY’S ENTERPRISE

Description:

The market for refinery products is mature and faces intense competition and increasing regulations. The key to survival is lowering costs, increasing return on capital employed (ROCE), and increasing operating flexibility. Having additional hydrogen increases flexibility by allowing refiners to react to market opportunities in processing lower cost crudes and producing additional quantities of higher value transportation fuels. Additionally, hydrogen availability can decrease downtime and increase refinery production, all of which lead to greater profitability. Air Products and TECHNIP bring more than 40 years of experience and leading edge technology in hydrogen production, which can benefit refiners by extending their enterprise through integrated hydrogen and utility supply solutions. To a refiner, the availability of reliably produced hydrogen is often as important as the price. The reason is that hydrogen is critical to the operation of hydrocrackers, hydrorefining units, and hydrotreaters required to meet the stringent needs of ultra clean transportation fuels. This paper will discuss alternative means of efficiently obtaining new supplies of hydrogen including off-gas recovery, debottlenecking existing hydrogen plants, building a new hydrogen facility, or outsourcing to a third party supplier. It will then compare the benefits and issues associated with each option. This paper will also discuss the relative efficiency of aging SMRs compared to a new high efficiency modern SMR in the context of rising natural gas pricing in the US. It will then show how a new larger SMR can provide very attractive economics when compared to upgrading and expanding an older inefficient unit. Further, the paper will highlight specific examples of how refiners have benefited from integrated hydrogen supply solutions including connections to hydrogen pipeline supply systems in large refining centers in the US and Europe. Connecting to a multiple source hydrogen pipeline system provides additional “degrees-of-freedom” to address peaking demand and supply reliability. These benefits are achieved at lower cost than an individual refiner’s “make” case economics, with enhanced efficiency and reliability. Based upon economies of scale and multiple sources of hydrogen, the hydrogen pipeline system serves as a large “flywheel” to manage and balance multiple customers’ requirements on the system.