The Coking.com Seminar Breakout Discussion Groups always get the best evaluations. Small groups made up of 20 to 30 refiners and suppliers focus on process, operations, maintenance/reliability or safety. They set their own agenda for their session by suggesting the topics that are most important to them and then ranking them. That makes it extremely relevant and timely!
“Being a process engineer, I found the discussion…very practical. I thought the breakout group was very helpful and informative. I would like to see more breakout sessions. Everything was useful!”
– Bob Neuman, Koch Petroleum Group
The hours of discussion is summarized for everyone’s benefit. It’s available on the Coking Forum.
One of the groups brainstormed on what an Ideal Coker might look like in relation to equipment, services, people, training, processes, procedures, etc. In some cases the ideas are available and in others the idea may be just a “vision” that the coker industry may target in future years.
The Ideal Coker:
- Dust free
- 2 overhead compressors
- 2 installed jet pumps
- Way of controlling feed consistency of composition
- A foolproof way to tell when drum is fully quenched
- Top notch training program with simulator supported by management
- Operator not exposed to any hydrocarbon
- Interlocks that can only be bypassed with rigorous procedures
- Inspection/reliability groups with direct line to top management
- Management of Change process and qualitative analysis on all changes
- Double fired furnaces
- Variable speed on pumps
- Controllers on furnace passes that don’t plug
- More skin Ti’s on furnace tubes
- No skin Ti’s but rather continuous infrared scanning of tube
- No skin Ti’s but optic fiber along whole tube so temp can be read at any spot
- Chrome piping in all areas with oil over 500F
- Clear understanding of when to bypass a drum
- Be able to understand when coke is laying down in pipe/tubes, etc
- SS tubes in furnaces
- Floating suction on cutting water tank
- Drill bit that can switch automatically
- Have more test coupons and corrosion monitoring automated into console
- Radar gauge on drum to measure foam/coke level
- Continuous drum level measurement, bottom to top
- Automated top and bottom unheading
- Whole decoking process on structure automated
- Pad vs pit for drums to dump onto
- Zero coking in overhead lines off drums
- Ability to get data that will tell you how to optimize the cycle without damage to drums
- Zero maintenance backlog
- Full maintenance service around the clock
- No drilling equip required to get coke out of drum
- Total quality in design so we don’t have to rely on procedures/people
- Very little people turnover in the coker
- Fully operate in DCS mode on console
- Robot for the deck that can smell, see, hear, sense issues and report data
- Rapid removal of people from decks
- Bridge across derricks at top
- Unlimited budget in Ideal coker
- Pilot plant coker
- External flow meters for heavy oil/resid
- Steam flow meters all over so one can do a good steam balance
- 100% spares on pumps and exchangers
- Completely enclosed relief system
- A furnace that can be easily cleaned
- Furnace tubes that can go above 1300F
- Eliminate erosion to thermowells by designing so you can remove thermowells after decoke or shutdown and exchange with a spare set or allow putting in a special designed thermowell for use during the actual decoking
What would you like to add to the list?
Gary Pitman
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