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Description of the design

A vacuum distillation unit will be designed to obtain feed from the bottoms section of the
atmospheric distillation unit. The vacuum distillation unit will be used to separate the light vacuum gas
oil, heavy vacuum gas oil, and the vacuum residue from the crude oil feed. The heavier fractions of the
crude oil require temperatures high enough to allow thermal cracking to occur. Thermal cracking would
result in loss of product and equipment fouling. Thus, distillation is done in vacuum to lower the boiling
point and the temperature necessary for operation (Gary, Handwerk, & Kaiser, 2007).

Process definition

The bottoms stream of the atmospheric distillation unit is fed to the vacuum distillation unit. The
feed is composed of heavy fractions of crude oil that could not be separated at temperatures below 350
°C. The vacuum distillation unit is operated at pressures between 6.67 kPa and 13.33 kPa with the
temperature gradient along the length of the column ranging from 150 °C to 350 °C, this to avoid cracking
which occurs above 350 °C (Speight, 2006).

Basic assumptions

Economic margin

Input Cost (Php) Output Cost (Php)


Atmospheric Residue Light Vacuum Gas Oil
Steam Heavy Vacuum Gas Oil
Vacuum Residue
Process Water

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