ABSTRACT
This chapter provides crude and vacuum distillation units and key oil refining process units. The total capacity of the crude distillation units within a refinery is used as the capacity of an oil refinery. Butane is produced with other gases in an oil refinery from atmospheric distillation units and several downstream catalytic cracking, hydrotreating, hydrocracking, coking, paraffin isomerization, and catalytic reforming units. Heavy naphtha hydrotreater process conditions are typically in the following ranges. Reactor temperatures are between 500 F and 700 F, pressures between 200 and 800 psig, liquid hourly specie velocities of 0.5 to 10, and hydrogen treat gas rates of 200 to 3000 standard cubic feet per barrel. When feedstocks from catalytic crackers, hydrocrackers, and cokers, which are essentially cracked stocks, are present in the feed, the associated reactions of the unsaturated compounds lead to increased temperatures in the reactors, as the reactions are exothermic.
