Aspen-hysys simulation of a condensate fractionation plant

The steady state simulation of condensate fractionation plant was carried out using Hysys 3.2 Process Simulator. The condensate is the byproduct, produced by processing of natural gas which contains mostly C2 to C16 Varieties of products are obtained from fractionation of natural gas condensate. Heavy parts of it are used as diesel whereas the lighter parts are divided into different fractions for different uses. Distillation column is used for the separation of different fraction of condensate. One distillation column is sufficient for producing three products – two solvents and diesel. If any design change for the column is to be suggested, a new column cannot be built because it will require a lot of money. To evaluate different designs, simulators have become very handy. Several soft-wares have been developed for the petroleum industries. ASPENTM HYSYS is one of the software which is widely accepted and used for refinery simulation. ASPENTM HYSYS performs the oil distillation calculation through detail plate by plate calculation. This calculation includes generating pseudo- complex carbon chain. In this simulation, using atmospheric distillation (fractionation) has the volumetric flow rates of three products like Petrol (Motor Sprit or MS), Kerosene and Diesel are 50%, 25% and 25% respectively on basis of the condensate feed to the plant. This unit models a condensate processing facility consisting of a pre-heating train used to heat up the liquid condensates, an atmospheric distillation column to fractionate the condensates into its straight run products, stripper, heat exchangers, buffer tanks and oil transferring systems. Preheated condensate (from a preheat train) is fed to the fractionator, where vapor-liquid separation done and specialized products are produced from different zone. A furnace was used to heat the oils at desired level. A comprehensive study has done between the simulated data and the plant’s operating data.