4

How a refinery works

How a refinery

works
Condenser
Distillation
column wall

Valve

Butane and
lighter
components

Weir
Light
straight run
naphtha

All refineries use distillation to separate crude oil into

more useful components. More sophisticated refineries
like Humber also use a variety of advanced conversion
processes such as cracking, alkylation, desulphurisation
and reforming to improve the chemical structure of
feedstocks.

Distillation
Heavy
straight run
naphtha

Kerosene

Trays

Liquid
downcomer

Valve trays
A variety of tray designs are used to
improve the separation process in a
distillation column. In this system, the
vapour rises through valves set into each
tray to enhance contact with the liquid
flowing over it. Unvapourised liquid
cascades over a weir onto the next level
down.

Diesel

Distillation is the process of boiling a liquid and

collecting the condensed vapour. In petroleum refining it
is used to separate crude oil into more useful components.
A high tower, called a fractionating column, is used to
break down the crude oil. As crude enters the column,
the lighter, lower boiling point components vapourise
and rise to a level where the surrounding temperature
and pressure correspond to their boiling point.
Meanwhile, heavier, higher boiling point components
descend in a liquid stream to a level where conditions
match their boiling point.
A refinerys ability to upgrade low value components into
high quality products depends on the amount of additional
chemical conversion facilities it has.
This flexibility and sophistication is termed a refinerys
complexity and industry analysts rate Humber as by far the
most complex refinery in Europe.
Humbers ability to enhance the quality of low grade

Atmospheric
gas oil

feedstocks enables it to buy the fuel oil that other refiners

cannot upgrade and further refine it into more valuable
products. Some of the feedstock run at Humber comes from
other refineries distillation units, and is known as crude
tower bottoms or straight run atmospheric residue (SRAR).
SRAR is basically crude oil with most of the distillate and
lighter fractions creamed off.

Heater

Reboiler

Crude oil

Crude tower
bottoms (SRAR)

Crude oil distillation

A distillation column partially vapourises liquid feedstock so that the resulting gas and liquid
components can be separated. The column contains a number of stages, called trays, to achieve
a higher degree of separation. Vapour rises up the column, bubbling through the liquid cascading
down the column from tray to tray. Lighter, lower boiling point components tend to be driven
upwards until they reach a level where the pressure and temperature is similar to their own.
Similarly, heavier, higher boiling point components are driven down the column. Consequently,
vapour becomes richer in lighter components as it rises while liquid becomes richer in heavy
components as it descends, resulting in overall separation of the feedstock.

The column is filled with trays containing holes,

which allow the ascending vapour to bubble through
the descending liquid, increasing contact between
the two.
The vapours are cooled, condensed and drawn
off as distillates at various points up the column:
gas oil first, then diesel, kerosene, naphtha and finally,
petroleum gases such as propane and butane.
The heavy bituminous compounds which are not
vapourised because of their very high boiling points,
are piped off from the bottom of the tower.

Cracking
Unfortunately, the relatively simple distillation process
produces more heavy oils than are needed and not
enough of the lighter products, such as petrol and diesel,
which have greater market value.
Cracking is used to convert the heavier gas oils into
more valuable products petrol, diesel and gas by
breaking down the complex molecule chains which make