Late last year, Air Products commissioned its latest hydrogen production/cogeneration plant next door to a Valero Energy Corp. refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. The Port Arthur II Integrated Hydrogen/Cogeneration Facility (Figure 1) was designed and built by Air Products under a long-term supply contract with Valero. What sets this project apart from the typical gas turbine–fired cogen plant "over the fence" from a refinery is its successful integration of combined-cycle generation technology and steam methane reformer (SMR) technology. The results are impressive: The plant simultaneously produces about 100 MW of electricity, 110 million standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of hydrogen, and up to 1.2 million lb/hr of steam.
1. Triple play. Air Products' new power, steam, and hydrogen production facility in Port Arthur, Texas, supplies everything (except the crude oil) that a nearby Valero refinery needs to produce cleaner-burning gasoline and low-sulfur diesel fuel. For hydrogen backup, the refinery can tap Air Products' West Gulf Coast pipeline network. Courtesy: Air Products
The refinery, on a 4,000-acre site about 90 miles east of Houston, needs all of those inputs because it's big and versatile. It converts more than 300,000 barrels a day of crude oil (including 100% sour crude) into jet fuel, low-sulfur diesel fuel, petrochemical feedstocks, petroleum coke, and conventional and reformulated gasoline.
Fence creates good neighbors
Construction of the integrated hydrogen plant began in April 2005, 18 months before coming on-line. Commissioning and start-up of the integrated plant was handled by Air Products. Start-up was delayed almost four months by the destruction wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The relationship between Air Products and Valero has already paid dividends to both firms. Now that its refinery has secure supplies of hydrogen, steam, and electricity, Valero can concentrate on its core business of refining crude. For its part, Air Products can focus more on its expertise: producing hydrogen and co-products.
Port Arthur II is one of only a handful of SMRs worldwide with an integrated gas turbine. The facility design typifies a trend among refiners to outsource their needs for three key utilities—power, steam, and hydrogen.
The plant design must be considered evolutionary because Port Arthur II is the third integrated hydrogen/cogeneration facility that Air Products has built over the past decade. The first, completed in 1996 in Los Angeles, had an 80-million-scfd SMR and a 30-MW extraction/condensing steam turbine-generator. The second facility, also serving Valero at Port Arthur, which came on-line in 2000, produces 105 million scfd of hydrogen using a 37-MW GE Frame 6B gas turbine-generator. With each project, the plant and process design and integration with the refinery became more complicated.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
