Is your refinery facing an increase in hydrogen demand?
	Are you affected by stricter legislation such as the European Union's Auto-Oil mandate?
	Is the focus of your refinery shifting towards heavier, higher sulphur crudes?
	Do you simply want to increase process capacity?

Typically, the refinery hydrogen balance is critical resulting in:

	Production bottlenecks as a result of hydrogen shortfall
	Capital investment, if hydrogen production capacity needs to be scaled up
	Increased operating cost, if more hydrogen needs to be purchased or produced

Linnhoff March now offers a Hydrogen Management service based around its HydrogenPinch techniques to address these problems. Our track record speaks for itself.

Benefits

At Linnhoff March, we have a worldwide reputation for developing and applying Pinch Analysis to energy and water minimisation. This methodology has now been extended and applied to the analysis of hydrogen systems. It is a rigorous and systematic approach which will simultaneously address all of the following areas:

Hydrogen Supply On-site hydrogen producers "Over the fence" purchased hydrogen Optimal Use of existing compressors		Hydrogen Recovery Improved use of existing recovery equipment Assessment of new recovery equipment Optimum type, size and placement
Process Units Maximising re-use of hydrogen Yield increases by improving partial pressures Reduce partial pressures in non-critical units		Fuel Gas System Impact of changes in offgas flows & compositions Interactions with hydrogen plant feed Overall effect on refinery fuel balance

Linnhoff March's Hydrogen Management service has a proven track record of achieving significant reductions in operating cost. The service becomes even more effective prior to any major investments or when a bottleneck in the hydrogen supply threatens to affect your refinery operation.

Project benefits include:

	Identification of the minimum hydrogen demand for the refinery
	Development of strategies to achieve the minimum demand
	Improved yield on key process units
	Capital cost avoidance and ongoing operating cost savings

How does it work?

click to enlarge

Our project team will work closely with you to identify the best route to an optimised hydrogen network. The analysis is carried out using our in-house HydrogenPinch software which automates the search for improvement opportunities while allowing the engineer to specify constraints where re-use is not permitted because of safety or practicality. As with other areas of Pinch Analysis, graphical tools are widely used to illustrate and to gain insight into the problem.

click to enlarge

The composite curves show the current supply and demand of hydrogen in terms of purity versus quantity for the various process units, indicating where bottlenecks exist which need to be overcome by blending or some form of regeneration.

Besides "easy-win" opportunities, larger benefits become apparent when applying our unique Sensitivity Analysis. This takes into account such parameters as hydrogen cost, purity, pressure and added value.

Deliverables

click to enlarge