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MP Engineering Refinery Kits

Page history last edited by Michael 5 years ago

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     The Morrow Project has two "oil refinery in a box" sets, which can be quickly put into service by Engineer teams. They are "straight run" refineries, which process crude oil into its components based on their boiling points. The crude oil cannot contain more than 1 kilogram of salt per 1000 barrels -- more than this requires special materials and pre-treatment processes.

 

200 Barrel Simple Refinery

 

     A very simple refinery, with a lot of limitations -- compared to the 500 barrel refinery, it's less safe, doesn't have many options for production, less efficient (more waste material), produces more pollution, uses more heat, and isn't as durable or expandable. It converts 200 barrels (32,000 liters) of crude oil, per day, into diesel fuel, naptha or gasoline, and fuel oil. It can also produce kerosene, but only at a small percentage of output.

     The refinery must be supplied with at least 100 barrels of crude oil per day, to have proper hydraulics and heating.

     It fits in one big prefab "butler building", plus a cooling system that looks a lot like a large shallow pool of water. Only 1 or 2 workers are needed to operate it after installation and commissioning. The refinery components are shipped in a standard 40' (12 meters) ocean cargo container.
      As a "package", there's the 12 meter container with all the refinery technical components; 3 more containers with pipe fittings, electrical gear, compressors and gas tanks, assembly tools, etc.; and an M971 van trailer as a construction office/control room. The containers are carried on M872 flatbed trailers. The "end user" has to provide a building and site (see below for some of the requirements, in the 500 barrel refinery section), pipe work external to the refinery, storage tanks, and load-out facilities.
      However, site selection might just be "find a surviving big building near a river or lake and a supply of crude oil." The crew required once it's in operation is 1 person per 12 hour shift, plus a technically-skilled supervisor on call.

      Transport requirements:   four flatbed trailers, five semi-tractor trucks.

 

3000 Barrel Simple Refinery

 

     This is a larger version of the 500 barrel refinery. The refinery equipment is carried in 5 containers, along with 5 containers of pipe fittings, electrical gear, compressors and gas tanks, specialized assembly tools, and an 11th control room/shop trailer. It requires 96 hours for a well-equipped 20 person work crew to put into service -- not including road work, foundations, security, living facilities, storage tanks, pipe work outside of the refinery, etc. Only two operators and an on-call technically-skilled supervisor are needed once it's running.

     A de-salter pre-treatment section can be added -- one additional container is required.

     3000 barrels (480,000 liters) per day of crude oil input becomes 90,000 liters of "straight run" naptha or gasoline, 125,000 liters of diesel, 30,000 liters of kerosene, and 125,000 liters of heavy fuel oil and various other petro-chem products (e.g., road or roofing tar). At least 1500 barrels must be processed each day, to keep the plant hot and hydraulically stable.

      Transport requirements:  ten flatbed trailers, eleven semi-tractor trucks.

 

500 Barrel Advanced Refinery

 

 

     This is another "skid-mounted" oil refinery, fitted into twenty 40' (12.2 meter) ocean cargo containers. It uses vacuum distillation and catalytic cracking to produce fuels and other products from crude oil; it is heated with fuel oil or natural gas to 410 ℃. Maximum input is 500 barrels of crude oil per day; electrical power of 100 kilowatts is also required, mostly for pumps.

      The refinery is much more sophisticated than the 200 or 3000 barrel version -- it's got "modern" safety, environmental protection, automation, product quality and characteristics control, standardization with regular refinery equipment, etc.

      Before the refinery can be assembled, a lot of preparation and construction is required -- someone (probably Project engineer teams, see below) has to do these tasks:

 

  • conduct a land survey, and identify water sources

  • build access roads

  • clear and level the refinery site; it's about a hectare including berms and fire margins, not including oil storage tanks

  • set up a work camp with fencing and any required security features

  • install and build water pumps and piping for work camp, fire fighting, construction, and (eventually) cooling

  • install a fire protection system including hydrants

  • water drainage system

  • electrical power supply (probably fusion)

  • area lighting

  • locate and provide a lot of concrete for foundations, and cinder blocks for refinery installation phase

  • provide buildings (control, lab, shop, office, etc.); most probably converted from the ocean cargo containers once emptied

  • storage tanks or pipelines for crude oil and the various products

  • a truck loading rack

  • fire protection system including hydrants

  • compressors, tanks and piping for a compressed air supply

  • ditto for a compressed nitrogen supply

  • waste water treatment (up to a sort of 1970s level)

 

     Many of the installed items come from these ten containers (and one trailer):

 

  • electrical power, presumably fusion

  • compressed air (compressor, lots of fittings and pipe)

  • nitrogen production and compression

  • water supply fittings including fire protection

  • electrical power distribution, and lighting

  • water treatment (inbound)

  • waste water treatment

  • storage tank and pipeline fittings

  • office, lab, shop and control building fittings, porta-potties, light bulbs, etc.

  • trailer spares (mostly wheels and tires)

  • installation and construction office and shop trailer (i.e., not stuffed to the roof with equipment), including all the manuals and plans

 

     At this point, the nine containers holding the "refinery-specific" components have to be present. The weights given are of the contents, not including the 3,750 kg mass of each 12 meter container:

 

  • pipelines and metal structures: 9190 kg

  • cooling unit, metal structures, process pumping units: 8650 kg

  • evaporator unit, corrosion inhibitor unit, separator with maintenance platform: 8410 kg

  • metal structures, process pumps unit 2: 6230 kg

  • furnace unit, black-box stairs: 11835 kg

  • metal structures, heat exchangers unit, boxes with valves and fittings: 10715 kg

  • black box, condensing unit: 8320 kg

  • column K-2: 3230 kg

  • column K-1: 3420 kg


      .... for a total of 70 tons of components, including a 2 year supply of spare parts. 

     The refinery components (the 9 containers) take 2 months to assemble on the site, followed by a month of "commissioning". Also the listed components do NOT include the tools, cranes, scaffolding, etc. to assemble the refinery.    

     For high-salt crude, a pre-treatment de-salter will be required ... this adds two container-sized units, uses a lot of fresh water, and produces some contaminated, salty water (but much, much less than the 3000 barrel simple refinery).

     Once in operation, the refinery allows a single operator to restart the plant from a cold start in less than four hours and have the plant in full operation. Oil refineries do NOT like to be shut down -- if everything cools down you get heavy, cold sludge in all your pipes!

     500 barrels (80,000 liters) per day of crude oil input becomes 37,000 liters of gasoline, 22,000 liters of diesel, 7,500 liters of kerosene, and various other petro-chem products (e.g., road or roofing tar).
      For the Morrow Project, three big engineering teams would have to participate in getting this going, presuming the civil economy hadn't recovered to provide these functions:

 

  • heavy transport team (semi-tractors, cargo container trailers, shop/repair vehicle)

  • at least one Recon or MARS team during transport and construction, as security

  • civil engineering team (access and road repair to the site, cement mixing, trenching, grading, obtaining water supply, building foundations, fencing and camp construction, and other site prep)

  • construction engineering team (with forklifts, cranes to lift 3.5 tons 24 meters, welders, lots of heavy labor) -- at least 50 people, the company which makes these doesn't provide any info on the labor force involved in any stage of construction.


      A two-axle semi-trailer tanker might hold 5,000 gallons (19,000 liters); so (in very rough terms) if all export is by trailer, the refinery would send out each day two trailers of gasoline, one of diesel, and half of a tanker of jet fuel.

      Transport requirements:  nineteen flatbed trailers, twenty semi-tractor trucks.

 

 

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