Internship Report

By: Hafiz Muhammad Junaid

Department of Petroleum Technology,
University of Karachi.
Dated: 08-07-2008
[email protected]
 Acknowledgment
It was great honour for me to join PRL as internee.
It was a great experience. It was the first time to see the
industrial equipment and the process of distillation
which before that I was only read in the books.

In this regard I really thankful to the officials of

PRL Mr. Sakhawat, Mr. Azhar, Mr. Muhammad Khalil,
Mr. Kamran, Mr. Ejaz, Mr. Bilal, Mr. Inam ur Rehman
and all others whose name I am missing on this paper.

_________________________
Hafiz Muhammad Junaid
 Internship Report

Table of Contents
Unit Page #

Company Profile 4

Process Summary 5

Desalter unit 6

Crude Unit 7

Naphtha Reforming Unit 8

Steam Generation Unit 9

Electricity Generation Unit 9

Wastewater Treatment Plant 10

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Company Profile

Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) was built and

commissioned in October 1962 at Karachi in alliance with major
foreign oil companies like Burmah Oil California, Texas Oil
Corporation, Shell Petroleum Corporation and Esso Standard
Eastern Inc. PRL is a hydro-skimming refinery with a capacity of
50,000 barrels per operating day. The process configuration
constitutes desalting, crude distillation, hydrodesulphurization,
platforming and LPG units. Though, designed to process Iranian
Light, it has acquired the ability to process a variety of imported and
indigenous crude oils to produce energy products namely-LPG, MS
Unleaded 90 RON, Naphtha, Kerosene, HSD, JP-1, JP-8, MTT and
Furnace Oil. PRL, since inception has been the principal
manufacturer and supplier of petroleum products to the domestic
market and Pakistan defence forces. It continues to serve the energy
needs of the country with professional excellence and high degree of
commitment. PRL takes pride in the edge it enjoys over its
competitors in respect of efficiency, lower operating cost, high
quality human resources, reliability and introduction of newer
generation technologies.
PRL has demonstrated its excellence as a first rate
corporate citizen by serving community and demonstrating total
commitment to the cause of Health, Safety and Environment. PRL is
proud to be the leader in integrated HSEQ Management System,
being the first in Pakistans oil industry to achieve OHSAS
18001:1999 and ISO 14001:2004 certification.

No. of sites = 2 (Refinery and Oil Storage Terminal at Keamari)

No. of Employees = 275
Annual Turnover = Rs. 57.4 billion (July 06- June 07)

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Process Summary
Desalter Unit
Crude Unit
Catalytic Hydrodesulphuriser Unit
Platformer Unit
Effluent Water Treatment Plant
LPG Recovery Unit
Reverse Osmosis Unit
Water Softening Unit
Steam Generation Unit
Electricity Generation Unit

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Desalter unit

Desalting Unit

Desalting unit is the very important unit in the

refinery. As crude oil is taken from the underground reservoir
therefore it is contain salts which should be removed from the crude
to avoid corrosion, scaling, fouling and poisoning of catalyst. So,
crude should be desalted.
Desalination is carried out by mixing the crude oil
with water and emulsifying agent to make a emulsion because the
salts are trapped in the crude oil and in emulsion form.
Then demulsifying agent (Petrolite) is added to
remove the salts and electrostatic force is applied to coalesce the
particles.

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Crude Unit

Distillation Tower 101-E:-

It is the main distillation tower, it comprises of 20
trays out of which top 12 trays are sieve and remaining 8 trays are
bubble cap trays.

The flash zone is at the 17th tray. A crude from the

desalter is heated in the furnace @ 350OC and enters in the 101-E.
101-E gives three streams:
1. Overheads
2. Gas oil
3. Residue
Overheads are sent to the column 102-E where it
splits into three streams i.e.
1. Gasoline and LPG (top)
2. Naphtha (from Middle)
3. Kerosene (Bottom)

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Top stream is send to the column 105-E where LPG

is separated from the gasoline and after washing with water and
CTC it is rundown whereas gasoline is passes through a heat
exchanger and sent to through the gasoline stabilizer where small
H/Cs i.e. C4 and C 5 remove from it and gasoline is run down.

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NAPHTHA REFORMING UNIT

Mid stream is
send to the
hydrodesulfurizer unit to
remove the impurities of
sulphur and nitrogen in
combine form. It is necessary
to remove these impurities
as they are poisonous for
catalyst. Hydrodesulfurizer Unit

The Naphtha
produced is not suitable to
used as motor fuel i.e. it is
reform in the Platforming
unit.
It consist of
three reactors with Pt/Rd
catalyst and three furnaces.
Feed enters at the Platforming unit
temperature of 490OC to
507OC.

In first reactor Naphtha is dehydrated, in second

reactor isomerization of paraffins takes place and in third reactor
hydrocracking is occurred.
The produced naphtha is of 86 RON.

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STEAM GENERATION UNIT

In PRL steam
is used for various purposes.
It is used in distillation
column for stripping, in
turbine driven pumps and
compressors etc.

This steam is generated by three boilers which are

D shape water in tube boilers. These boilers contain steam drum at
top and water/mud drum at bottom. These two portions connected
with the tubes some of which extend to the fire box envelope.

The total design capacity of each boiler is about

45,000 lbs/hr of steam @ 20 kg/cm2 pressure.

Now-a-days boilers are producing the steam from

45,000 lbs/hr to 55,000 lbs/hr and ion emergency ~ 90,000 lbs/hr
@ 19.5 Kg/cm2.
FEED WATER FOR BOILERS:-

The water from KDA contains various TDS & TSS

which can cause scaling in the tubes of boilers and it can decrease
the heat transfer which cause increase in fuel consumption. So the
water should be treated to remove its hardness before supplied to
boilers.
The water from KDA contains various TDS & TSS
which can cause scaling in the tubes of boilers and it can decrease
the heat transfer which cause increase in fuel consumption. So the
water should be treated to remove its hardness before supplied to
boilers.
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This treatment is carried out by the cat and base unit

which exchange the ions of Ca+2 from water and this water send to
deaerator to remove O2. Then water from deaerator enters into
boilers at 129OC and at 1.7Kg/cm2.

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ELCTRICITY GENERATION UNIT

The refinery
takes the electricity from
KESC through BS-I (Korangi
Thermal Unit) & BS-II
(Qayoomabad Grid Station).
The vital load on BS-I.

In case of failure of supply there is a new generator of

Cummins C2500 D5A Diesel Genset and can produce 2250 kVA. Its
standby is old Generator of English Elctric with capacity of
1375kVA which was installed in 1962.
Moreover there are two more generators of 630 kVA
and 12.5 kVA which are used for lighting purpose.

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WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT

Introduction:-

In 2004 a
second industrial waste
water treatment plant
established in Pakistan by
Siemens in the premises of
Pakistan Refinery Ltd.,
Karachi.

The wastewater of PRL contains sulphides, chlorides,

TDS oil and grease etc. they must be removed before discharging the
water to the sea.

Treatment
1. The wastewater enters into the oil separator, where oil and
grease skimmed from the water.
2. Then water enters to the holding basin where remaining oil also
removed from water.
3. Then wastewater enters to the buffer tank where its pH
maintained between 8.0 to 8.5.
4. Buffer Tank (Tank 42) removes the H2S by the aeration and
release it to the atmosphere.
5. Now Wastewater enters into Coiled Pipe Flocculating (CPF) unit
where alum (35% w/v) and poly electrolytes (0.1% 0.5% w/v)
and is added.
6. In CPF pH should be maintain b/w 6.8 to 7.8 by adding HCl and
Caustic.
a. When pH drops to 6.8 caustic injection starts
b. When pH reaches 7.8 HCl injection starts

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7. Alum changes the surface characteristics of small particles of

sludge and they attached with each other and settled down as
coagulates.
8. Small particles which cant be coagulated by alum are separated
by Poly electrolytes.
9. Now the wastewater goes into the Title Plate Floatation unit
where the suspended solids are floated over the surface by the
air blowing from the bottom.
10. Wastewater then goes to Pre-Selector 2 where MLSs and MLVSs
added to it and then it goes to oxidation basin where MLSS and
MLVSs oxidized the organic matter ion the water.
11. In oxidation basin aeration automatically starts at D.O level 1.8
and stops at D.O level 2.5.
12. The feed for Microorganisms are FeCl3 and H3PO4.
13. Now the WW goes to knockout pit and then goes to clarifier pit
and discharge to sea.

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TREATED EFFLUENT QUALITY

Parameter Value
pH 7 8.5
TSS < 30ppm
Temperature 30 35OC
Oil and Grease < 0.1ppm
Sulphides < 0.1ppm
BOD5 <5ppm
COD < 50ppm
Phenol <0.05ppm

PRL EFFLUENT NORMAL VALUE

Parameter Value
pH 8.5 9.5
TSS 50
Temperature 30OC
Oil and Grease 10 20 ppm
Sulphides 13 ppm
BOD5 12 ppm
COD 450 ppm
Phenol 1 7 ppm

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