Optimal Retrofit Design of Crude Distillation Units for Processing Shale Gas/Natural Gas Condensate Oil

The increasing production of condensate oil due to shale gas/natural gas booming has economically motivated refiners to add this valuable and abundant crude source into their feedstock. Many refineries, however, were originally built to process heavier crudes, whose design must be retrofitted to enable the processing of the changed feedstock. The conceptual retrofit design of crude distillation units for processing condensate oil has been studied. Four retrofit designs are proposed and simulated including facilities of preflash column, atmospheric distillation unit, and vacuum distillation unit. All retrofit designs are comprehensively evaluated by steady‐state modeling for feasibility check, energy consumption analysis for operating cost evaluation, and retrofit cost evaluation. The retrofit design with preflash columns in sequence potentially could be the most economical case.