Satish Lele
lelepiping@gmail.com


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BASIC ENGINEERING PACKAGE
Basic Engineering Package : Basic Engineering Package defines the purpose, content and structure of the basic engineering or design specification, and it is first step in the project development process. Basic Engineering Package emphasizes the importance of carefully maintaining the project's technical direction as defined in the Basic Design Phase and of providing definite direction and sufficient detail to ensure orderly and efficient progression of subsequent detailed engineering, procurement and construction activities.
A Typical Basic Engineering Package for Vegetable Oil Refining
PROCESS DESCRIPTION
General: M/s. Tropical Oil Refining Ltd., intends to set up "Soft and Tropical Oil Refining Project" at Mumbai, in India. This plant will produce 1,000 tons of refined oil from crude oil imported from abroad. Three types of crude oils will be imported, Degummed Soya bean Oil (SBO), Crude Olein (OL) and Crude Palm Oil (PO).
SBO needs chemical refining whereas OL and PO can be treated by physical refining. After refining, all the oils undergo bleaching and deodorizing. Deodorized (RBD) oils are the finished product. These are packed in pouches and tins or sent out in road tankers or rail tankers.
Part of deodorized PO (RBD PO) and bleached SBO (RB SBO) is hydrogenated and deodorized again. Packs of hydrogenated oils are subjected to controlled cooling in cold rooms.

    Storage of oils is provided at five stages of the treatment process:
  1. Crude oil storage
  2. Refined and bleached oil storage (Intermediate Product)
  3. Refined bleached and deodorized oils storage (Finished Product)
  4. Hydrogenated RB oil storage (Intermediate Product)
  5. Hydrogenated RBD oil storage (Finished Product)
Crude SBO Treatment Process

Stage 1
: Chemical refining of CSBO involves neutralization with caustic soda and washing with water. This is followed by bleaching with clay as adsorbent. Neutralizer and bleacher are the proprietary packages supplied by some companies specialized in this line on turn key basis. The process is continuous.
Oil refining consists of neutralization, bleaching and filtration to remove fatty acids and phosphates from the oils. Bleaching is done to remove the turbidity, which gives undesirable color to the oil. After this oil is deodorized in a tall column under vacuum and high temperature.
Crude SBO is transferred from storage tanks into inlet buffer tank. From here Crude SBO is continuously supplied to the neutralizer package. Neutralized and washed SBO continuously goes to the bleacher. Bleached SBO is received in outlet buffer tank. From here RB SBO is transferred to the storage tank via polishing filter and economizer. Soap stock is generated as by product in neutralizer package. This is taken to storage tank or Crude SBO is sent to acidulation (soap stock splitting) section for further treatment.
Caustic soda and phosphoric acid required in the process are supplied into the respective day tanks using transfer pumps in chemical storage area. Clay bags are manually dumped into the unloading hopper in blender section.
Wastewater generated in neutralizer section is sent to waste water treatment plant using pump. Spent clay from filters is collected in carts and sent out for disposal.

Stage 2 : Deodorizer package is common for SBO, OL, PO and hydrogenated oils. Hence RB SBO oil needs to be stored in intermediate storage tanks, when deodorizer is running on other oils. For starting SBO campaign in deodorizer, all lines and equipment are flushed with steam. Then RBO tank material is supplied continuously to deodorizer package. Deodorized oil is the finished product. Part of SBO is sent for hydrogenation. Deodorized SBO (RBD SBO) is transferred to selected storage tank using pump within package unit.

Stage 3 : Part of RB SBO is hydrogenated in hydrogenator package. RB SBO is sent to hydrogenator in batches. On the way to the reactor, RB SBO exchanges heat with product of previous batch, which is being sent to hydrogenated RB oils storage tank.
Crude OL / PO treatment process
Stage 1
: Physical refining of COL / CPO involves pretreatment with phosphoric acid. This is followed by bleaching with clay as adsorbent. Process for pretreatment and bleaching is proprietary and is supplied as turnkey package. The process is continuous.
Crude OL / PO is transferred from storage tanks into inlet buffer tank. From here OL / PO is continuously supplied to the pretreatment and bleaching package. Bleached OL / PO is received in outlet buffer tank. From here RB OL / PO is transferred to the storage tank via polishing filter and economizer.
Phosphoric acid required in the process is supplied into the day tank using transfer pump in chemical storage area. Clay bags are manually dumped into the unloading hopper in blender section.
Waste water generated in neutralizer section is sent to waste water treatment plant using pump. Spent clay from filters is collected in carts and sent out for disposal.

Stage 2 : Deodorizer package is common for SBO, OL, PO and hydrogenated oil. Hence RB OL / PO oil needs to be stored in intermediate storage tanks, when deodorizer is running on other oils. For starting OL / PO campaign in deodorizer, all lines and equipment are flushed with steam. Then RB OL / PO tank is connected to pump and is supplied continuously to deodorizer package. Deodorized OL / PO (RBD OL / PO) is transferred to storage tank using pump within the package unit.

Stage 3 : Part of RBD PO is hydrogenated in hydrogenator package. RB PO is sent to hydrogenator in batches. On the way to the reactor, RB PO exchanges heat with the product of previous batch, which is being sent to hydrogenated RB oils storage tank.
Soap Stock Splitting (Acidulation)
Stage 1
: Soap produced in CSBO neutralizer is partly sold out as soap. The rest is sent to hold tank in soap stock splitting section, which is a proprietary package unit. Soap is treated with sulphuric acid and acid oil is produced as a product. Storage tanks of acid oil and sulphuric acid and their pumps is a part of the package. Waste water produced is sent to waste water treatment plant by pump.
Finished Product Loading and Packing
RBD Oils
: Two bays are provided near refinery building for loading RBD oils into road tankers. Operator in the main control room connects the tanker with a hose, selects the RBD oils tank from which oil is to be loaded out, operates appropriate valves and starts the pump from control room. Oil gets filtered and is measured with a mass flow meter. Pump stops after appropriate quantity is loaded.
Rail car loading is done by similar operation.
For packing pouches, RBD oils are transferred by pump to packing line feed tanks in packing hall. Dedicated pumps are provided for feeding SBO, OL, and PO to any of the pouch filling machine. PO is fed to tin filling machines as well.
Hydrogenated RBD Oils : These are not sent out in bulk tankers. Pump is used for transferring these oils from storage tanks to packing line feed tanks. From these tanks, hydrogenated oils are fed to pouch filling machine and tin filling machine using dedicated pumps.
Pouches and tins of hydrogenated oils are taken to cold rooms. Packs of hydrogenated oils are exposed to cold air at –5oC in the cold rooms for nearly 22 hours. Oils get crystallized in the cold room.
Plant Facilities: Refining, deodorization, hydrogenation and acidulation are carried out in three different plant buildings. The utilities required for the plant are low, medium and high pressure steam, soft water, cooling water, nitrogen, hydrogen and instrument air. All facilities will not be provided from the beginning. Initial work which forms Phase I will include treatment facilities for soft oils (RBD SBO, RBDOL, RBDPO). Hydrogenation section will be introduced later in Phase II. However, BEP should consider both the phases and costs of Phase I and Phase II should be separately indicated.
Plant Capacity: Oil refining and deodorization are continuous processes whereas hydrogenation is a batch process. All the plants shall run continuously for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 330 days per year. Plant capacity will be 1,000 tons per day of all oils. The break-up is as follows :
Soya bean oil400 TPD
Palmolein300 TPD
Palm oil200 TPD
Hydrogenated oil100 TPD
Deodorizer is common for all oils and is sized to treat 1,000 tons per day. Pretreatment and blending equipment are common for palmolein and palm oil and are sized for 500 tons per day. Neutralization, bleaching, hydrogenation, deodorization are proprietary oil treatment processes. These will be bought as package on turnkey basis.
Item No.DescriptionCapacity in TPD
1CSBO neutralizer package400
2CSBO bleacher package400
3CPO / COL pretreatment and bleaching package500
4Hydrogenation package200
5Deodorizer package1000
6Acidulation package70
Capacities of various Storage Tanks Basis for oil storage at various stages is as follows:
Materials to be storedDays
Crude SBO35
Crude Olein45
Crude Palm Oil45
Refined and Bleached Oils3
Hydrogenated RB oils6
Deodorized oils3
Hydrogenated RBD oils6
Tank capacities worked out are as follows:
Oil TypePhase
III
Crude Oil Storage
CSBO3 X 5,000 MT-
COL3 X 5,000 MT-
CPO1 X 5,000 MT1 X 5,000 MT
Intermediate Oil Storage
RB SBO3 X 500 MT-
RB OL2 X 500 MT-
RB PO2 X 500 MT-
RB HSBO-2 X 200 MT
RBOH PO- 5 X 200 MT
Finished Product Storage
RBD SBO3 X 500 MT-
RBD OL2 X 500 MT-
RBD PO1 X 500 MT-
RBHD SBO-2 X 200 MT
RBDHD PO-5 X 200 MT
Packing Feed Tanks
RBD Oils3 X 50 MT2 X 50 MT
Hydrogenated RBD Oil-2 x 50 MT
Basis of storage for by-products and treatment chemicals is as follows:
MaterialStorage for DaysQuantity MT
Soap225
Acid oil302 X 250 MT
Palm fatty acid distillate151 X 250 MT
Soya fatty acid distillate301 X 50 MT
Caustic lye (48%)301 X 60 MT
Phosphoric acid301 X 33 MT
Sulphuric acid151 X 58 MT
Citric acid6050X500 Liters or 120X200 Liters
Clay (Imported)6011040 X 25 Kg Bags
Clay (Local)3018480 X 25 Kg Bags
Catalyst60300 X 25 Kg Drums
Hydrogen truck317 X 800 Nm3
Packing lines:
Pouches: pack size will be 0.5 liter and 1 liter. Total 10 lines sized for 50 tons per day each should be designed. Out of these only 4 will be put up in Phase I and 6 in Phase II.
Tins: pack size to be considered is 15 kgs. Total 3 lines sized for 50 tons per day each should be designed. All of these will be installed in Phase II.
Bulk loading: 2 bays for tanker loading should be considered, for Phase I which is sufficient for Phase II also. 1 rail car loading station near plant boundary to be considered.
Warehousing: five days storage with respect to packing line capacity should be considered for all types of packs. Storage basis for packaging materials shall be as follows :
Material Days storage
Empty tins5
Empty cartons10
Pouch reels20
Cold storage rooms : In Phase II, cold rooms are to be provided for crystallizing hydrogenated RBO SBO and PO in order to produce vanaspati. Pouches and tins of hydrogenated oils will be stacked in cold room and kept in contact with –5oC air for nearly 32 hours. There will be 4 cold rooms. Each room will hold 75 MT of finished product equivalent to approximately 3 hours output from packing lines. HVAC unit for cold rooms will be based on ammonia and will be located close to cold rooms.

Special design requirements
  1. All palm oil and palmolein tanks (crude as well as treated) need to be maintained at 55oC.
  2. Hydrogenated RBD oils need to be stored at 50oC.
  3. RBD Soya bean oil needs to be stored at 38oC.
  4. All palmolein and palm oil pipes should be steam traced to prevent solidification of oils in pipe.
  5. After bleaching, oils should not come in contact with atmospheric oxygen. Hence all storage tanks of RB oils should be blanketed by nitrogen. During change over, lines should be flushed with nitrogen and not with air.
  6. Oil lines in packing area, down stream of packing line feed tank, should be of SS304.
  7. Good hygienic practice code should be followed for product ware house.
  8. Plant should be automated to maximum extent so that manual operations are kept minimum.
Calculation of requirement of Utilities
    Major utilities required are
  1. Raw water: Pressure 3 kg/cm2g, temperature ambient,
  2. Nitrogen: Pressure 5 kg/cm2g, temperature 40oC, purity 99.9%
  3. Soft water: Pressure 3 kg/cm2g, temperature 30oC, hardness < 5 ppm
  4. Dirty cooling water: Pressure 3 kg/cm2g, temperature 32oC, wet temperature 28oC,
  5. LP steam: Pressure 3 kg/cm2g, temperature 138oC,
  6. MP steam: Pressure 9 kg/cm2g, temperature 180oC, steam generation Pressure 10.5 kg/cm2g
  7. Cooling water: Pressure 3 kg/cm2g, temperature 32oC, wet bulb temperature 28oC,
  8. Instrument air: Pressure 7 kg/cm2g, outlet temperature 40oC max after dryer, dew point @ 1 atm = (-)40oC,
These are required in different plants, for different equipment. The requirement for each equipment, for each utility should be calculated in the form of table below in different sheets. These are then added for the individual plants. When requirement for each plant is worked out it is added to get the total requirement.
Degumming
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Feed pump   
Preheater   
Phosphoric acid tank   
Phosphoric acid pump   
Mixing tank   
Settler   
Discharge pump   
Separators   

Neutralization
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Caustic lye storage tank   
Caustic pumps   
Feed tank   
Pumps   
Preheater   
Feed pumps   
Mixers   
Separators    

Water Washing
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Heater   
Feed pumps   
Mixers   
separators   

Pretreatment
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Feed pump   
Heater   
Mixer   
Settler   
Phosphoric acid tank   
Phosphoric acid pumps   

Bleacher
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Bleaching earth tank   
Activated carbon tank   
Tank pumps   
Bleacher    
Bleacher output pumps   

Filtration
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Leaf filters   
Cyclone separators   
Secondary filters   
Bleached oil tank   
Recycle tank   
Recycle pump   
Vacuum unit   
Recovered oil tank   
Bleached oil pump   

Soft Column Deodorizer
EquipmentAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Filters   
Preheaters   
Deaerator   
Economizer   
Final heater   
Deodorizer   
Fatty acid receiver   
Fatty acid cooler   
Fatty acid pumps   
Exchanger pump   
Vacuum unit   
filters   
These are then summarized as follows for each utility:
PlantAverage flowPeak flowHeat load
Degumming   
Neutralization   
Water Washing   
Pretreatment   
Bleacher   
Filtration   
Soft Column Deodorizer   
Total for all plants   
    Documents prepared:
  1. Process description
  2. Plant capacity
  3. Plant facilities required
  4. Utilities summary sheets
  5. Data sheets for all the equipment.
  6. Process flow diagrams
  7. Piping and instrumentation diagrams


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