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What quantity of steam is required in distillation column and side strippers per barrel of crude/products.
 
Answers
10/11/2014 A: Ralph Ragsdale, Ragsdale Refining Courses, ralph.ragsdale@att.net
Very sorry. I should have stated:
Column bottoms 0.2 lbs/gal bottoms
side strippers 0.1 lbs/gal stripper bottoms, not per barrel

06/11/2014 A: Daniel Vargas, Saudi Aramco, vargasdj@aramco.com
Stripping steam have an important influence over the yields.
A general rule of thumb is around 10 -15 lb/barrel of product, but that ratio, which could be lower or higher than the previous range, should be optimized at the field and will depend of product nature. During field tuning, it should be considered the condenser capacity and hydraulic capacity of main tower or sidestripper.
Related to atmospheric residue stripping , the main objective is to recover light fractions as diesel or AGO. The bad performance or poor design of atmospheric residue stripping section could be a problem for downstream vacuum tower. There are many cases where atmospheric residue stripping section has poor design, then poor performance at any steam/residue ratio.
For the case of side products the objectives could be as flash point control and to recover light material.
If you are executing a new design, 10 lb/barrel could be used and then optimized based on products spec, condenser duty and percent of stripped product.
Also it is very important to consider that stripping steam rate will impact the sourwater production.
21/10/2014 A: Ralph Ragsdale, Ragsdale Refining Courses, ralph.ragsdale@att.net
Column bottoms 0.2 lbs/bbl bottoms
side strippers 0.1 lbs/bbl stripper bottoms
If there is a good reason to sharpen the cut between Atm Gas Oil and Atm. Bottoms, the bottoms stripping steam rate can be a part of the optimization calculations. But the reason must be valid considering the overall refinery margin.