Burghausen refinery

OMV Germany
legal form	GmbH
founding	1966
Seat	Burghausen , Germany
Number of employees	472 (2016)
Branch	mineral oil
Website	www.omv.de

The Burghausen Refinery is an oil refinery in the Bavarian city of Burghausen . It is part of OMV Deutschland GmbH , which in addition to the refinery also operates petrol stations and tank farms. With a crude oil consumption of 3.46 million tons / year, it is the smallest still existing oil-processing refinery in Germany. Another special feature of the refinery is that it does not produce motor gasoline , but rather provides the entire gasoline cut for the production of petrochemical raw materials. This means that it continues to represent an important part of ChemDelta Bavaria . The refinery residue is processed in an extremely large coker , measured in relation to the crude oil input , which is why the refinery does not emit any bitumen .

history

The refinery was built in 1966 by Deutsche Marathon Petroleum GmbH and started operations in 1967. The establishment of the refinery was preceded by the establishment of the German Marathon in 1962 as a subsidiary of the Marathon Oil Corporation , which was supposed to process the oil produced in Libya. Transporting the oil produced by the marathon to the USA would have been uneconomical; so they looked for ways to process the oil in Europe. At the same time, the TAL formed to build a pipeline from Italy to southern Germany. Ultimately, the possibility of selling petrochemical products to the chemical industry in the Burghausen area was the decisive factor in building the refinery here. After just under two years of construction, the refinery went into operation after the TAL pipeline was completed in 1966.

When the USA imposed the economic embargo on Libya in 1986, Marathon Oil decided to withdraw from the business of the refinery in Burghausen, as it mainly processed Libyan crude oil. In autumn 1987 OMV AG took the chance and bought the refinery from the Marathon. In the years that followed, the refinery was extensively rebuilt and expanded in order to meet the new environmental regulations and changed competitive conditions.

Production facilities

The Nelson index for comparing the complexity of different refineries at the Burghauser refinery is 7.3. Despite a small number of process plants, the index is relatively high because the Koker raises the Nelson index sharply.

Crude oil distillation

The Burghausen refinery has a crude oil distillation facility in which various fractions are distilled from the crude oil. At 380 ° C the components separate into: liquid gas , naphtha, kerosene, gas oils and atmospheric residue. The capacity of the plant was increased only slightly from 1978 with 3,400,000 t / year until 2012 to 3,480,000 t / year.

Koker

The refinery also has a coker that processes the atmospheric residues. It is one of 4 coking plants operated in Germany, the other three are in Miro , BP Gelsenkirchen and the Emsland oil refinery . The coker works according to the delayed coking process , in which the heavy components of the crude oil are broken down by high temperatures - cracked . What remains is petroleum coke, a solid that collects in the coke drums. The gases, which in turn contain liquefied petroleum gas, naphtha, kerosene and gas oils, are distilled and fed to the corresponding processing plants.

In contrast to most other coke ovens, where vacuum residue is used, in the Burghauser coker atmospheric residue is the input product. The annual output of the coker is 1,560,000 tons, whereby external vacuum residues (feedstock) from other refineries are also used.

Calciner

The petroleum coke produced in the coker is then calcined in the calciner . Volatile components of the petroleum coke are burned in two hearth furnaces at 1,300 ° C. The resulting petroleum coke calcine is required in the steel industry and the manufacture of electrodes.

Petrochemicals

The liquefied gases and naphtha are first desulfurized and then cracked in steam cracking ovens. The pyrolysis gas from the ovens is hydrogenated and separated. This creates ethylene and propylene, which have to be separated at low temperatures. It also produces highly aromatic pyrolysis gasoline, which contains a lot of benzene. This is separated from the rest of the C-7 gasoline and sold separately.

Middle distillates

The middle distillates diesel and kerosene are desulphurised and blended (mixed) according to their use.

Claus plant

In the Claus plant, the hydrogen sulfide produced in the desulfurization is converted into elemental sulfur. This is required in the tire industry or for the production of sulfuric acid.

Crude oil and feedstock

The Burghausen refinery receives its crude oil via the transalpine oil pipeline . This begins in the seaport of Trieste , where the crude oil unloaded from the ships is pumped towards Burghausen and the other connected refineries. After the Alpine Passage, the crude oil is directed to the OMV tank farm at Steinhöring , where it can be temporarily stored. The crude oil reaches the refinery in Burghausen from here in a 62 km branch pipeline.

Mainly low-sulfur and high-quality Libyan crude oils are used, but crude oils from Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan are also processed.

Steinhöring - Burghausen crude oil pipeline

The junction from the valley from Steinhöring to the refinery in Burghausen is called the Steinhöring - Burghausen crude oil pipeline. The total length of the pipeline is 62.26 km with a diameter of 12 "(inches), which is 323.9 mm in metric dimensions. The protective strip is at least 10 m on both sides and the earth cover of the pipeline is at least 1 m.

Feedstock

In addition to Röhöl, feedstock are also used:

Vacuum residue as coke insert
C-3 cut for methylene plant
C-6 cut for aromatics plant
C-4 cut for methathesis system
Hydrogen for desulfurization

Since the refinery does not produce any petrol and therefore does not need any reformers , there is also no excess hydrogen that is required for desulphurisation. So this has to be purchased externally.

Products and shipping

The refinery produces the following products:

Kerosene in the form of JetA1

Diesel fuel

Extra light heating oil

Heavy fuel oil in the form of coker fuel oil and gas oil 3

sulfur

The products are mainly shipped via pipeline, railroad and truck. As the refinery is not directly connected to a waterway, the products first have to be brought to the next loading point on the Danube. The Burghausen freight center is being built in the immediate vicinity of the refinery .

Product pipeline

A product pipeline leads to the tank farm in Feldkirchen and from here on to Erding to the tank farm at Munich Airport. In Feldkirchen , diesel and heating oil can be made available for the greater Munich area at low cost. The pipeline to the tank farm in Feldkirchen is 87.2 km long and has a diameter of 8 ", which corresponds to 219.1 mm. From Feldkirchen the product pipeline continues to Munich Airport near Erding, where another tank farm is located. The second section is also designed in 8 "and has a length of 36.2 km. According to the operator OMV, the pipeline should eliminate 50,000 truck loads.

Ethylene and propylene line

Another pipeline supplies chemical companies such as Wacker and Borealis with ethylene and propylene for plastics production. Further customers are connected via the Ethylen-Pipeline Süd .