The Refining Process

ORC-I processes over 35,000 barrels of crude oil a day to produce different grade of petroleum products. The Refinery's primary products are Liquefied Petroleum Gas, Light Naphtha, Heavy Naphtha, High Octane Blending Component, Motor Gasoline, Kerosene, Jet Fuels, High Speed Diesel and Furnace Oil.

The refining process starts in the distillation towers. Here, liquids and vapors are separated into components according to weight and boiling point. Naphtha Hydrotreater of 3,000 BBLS capacity is designed to produce feed for Catalytic Reforming unit which convert it to high octane motor gasoline. The Catalytic Reforming process result in higher octane fuels designed to meet the needs of today's engines.

Only about 40 percent of crude oil is comprised of the ingredients for the high-quality fuels we produce. The remaining components of crude are heavy, poor performing fuels and sold as fuel oil. Kerosene, Light & Heavy Naphtha and LPG are further treated to produce market grade specification fuels. Finally, after more than 20 hydrocarbons and additives have been blended into the fuel, the finished products are held in storage tanks, ready to be shipped to customers.

Refining Capacity
Process Unit	Capacity (bbl/d)
Crude Oil Distillation Unit	35,000
Gas Separation Unit	2,500
Naphtha Hydrotreating Unit	3,000
Semi-Regen Platforming Unit	3,000
Heavy Naphtha Treatment unit	2,500
Light Naphtha Treatment unit	2,500
LPGSweetening Unit	1000
Kero/JP 1 Sweetening Unit	1000

Single Point Mooring

Single Point Mooring (SPM) is a loading buoy anchored offshore that serves as a mooring point and interconnect for the offloading of crude tankers. The system consists of floating hoses connected from tanker to SPM, tied to Pipeline End Manifold (PLEM) via flexible hoses and PLEM connected to a refinery storage tank via rigid undersea pipeline of (11.32 Km) and onshore pipeline of 2.9 Km.

Crude Distillation Unit

Crude oil is separated into fractions by fractional distillation. The fractions at the top of the fractionating column have lower boiling points than the fractions at the bottom. All of the fractions are processed further in other refining units.

Crude Oil Refining
Distillate Fraction	Boiling Point (C)	Carbon Atoms per Molecule
Gases	below 30	1 - 4
Gasoline	30 - 210	5 - 12
Naphtha	100 - 200	8 - 12
Kerosene & Jet Fuel	150 - 250	11 - 13
Diesel & Fuel Oil	160 - 400	13 - 17
Atmospheric Gas Oil	220 - 345
Heavy Fuel Oil	315 - 540	20 - 45
Atmospheric Residue over	450	over 30
Vacuum Residue	over 615	over 60

Naphtha Hydrotreater Unit

Hydro treating is a catalytic refining process employing a catalyst and hydrogen rich gas stream to remove about 99% of contaminants such as nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and metals from straight run heavy naphtha. These contaminants if not removed from the petroleum fractions, travel through the refinery processing units; can have detrimental effects on the equipments, the catalysts, and the quality of the finished product. Typically, hydro treating is done prior to processes such as catalytic reforming and isomerization so that the catalyst is not contaminated by untreated feedstock.

Reformer Unit

Catalytic reforming is an important process used to convert low-octane naphtha into high-octane gasoline blending components called Reformate. A Catalytic Reformer unit processes straight run naphtha with a boiling range of 80-150 C for improvement of octane number. The process requires heating naphtha to a temperature of 482C to 520C after mixing with recycle Hydrogen and passing through a series of alternating furnaces and fixed-bed reactors containing a platinum-rhenium catalyst in the vapor state. The feed naphtha is converted into high octane Reformate and Hydrogen. Reformate is used for MS blending whereas Hydrogen is separated from the reformate stream for recycling and used in other processes such as for Hydrotreating.

Isomerization Unit

A component of refinery gasoline pools that frequently offers the best opportunity for quality improvement is the pentane-Hexane fraction, or light straight-run (LSR) naphtha. The LSR is characterized by a low octane number, ordinarily 60 to 70 research octane number (RON). Isomerization converts linear molecules such as normal pentane into higher-octane branched molecules for blending into the end-product gasoline. This Process also removes Benzene from the feed. The isomerization unit is comprised of three sections, Feed Preparation, Penex and Molex and increases the octane from 65 to 90.