In April 2004, West Pacific Petro-Chemical Company (WEPEC for short) completed a capacity revamp for its atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit, which increased to 10 Mt/a. WEPEC’s 5 Mt/a atmospheric and Vacuum Unit was started in 1996 to process sour crude. After this revamp, the processing capacity of crude oil is over 10Mt/a; all the main technical specifications were either met or achieved at better than design. The success of this project indicates significant improvement of the atmospheric vacuum distillation technology and engineering designing capability.This revamp represents our high standards, not only in an increase of capacity, but in our technology as well. Our company decided to adopt EDV (TM) high efficiency valve trays while the vessels of prefractionator (ID4800mm) and atmospheric column (ID6600mm) remained unchanged. As a result, the column capacities have been effectively doubled while achieving better separation. This is another example of the success of the EDV (TM) high efficiency valve tray in large scale refinery revamping, after being used in 6 Mt/a atmospheric column in WEPEC.

First Ten-Mln-Ton-Level Crude Column in China (ID6600MM)