Five years experience in VTE industrial operations and their design improvements

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to report the experiences gained over five years of industrial run and to highlight the new development of Snamprogetti VTE. Our experiences are related to the desalination unit having a capacity of 1440 m 3 /day installed in the I.P. refinery in Taranto. This plant was started in March 1978 and since then it has supplied all the distilled water required for the refinery. An acid cleaning has been so far carried out every year and always during the shut downs for refinery maintenance. During said shut downs it was also possible to inspect the plant so as to check its conditions which proved to be good, showing the surfaces free both from corrosion and scaling. Until now the average on stream factor, taking into account the period of acid cleaning, has been about 90% and the production rate, due to the refinery demands, over 80% of the nominal design capacity. Thanks to the good performances of this plant, I.P., owner of the refinery, requested Snamprogetti to build a new desalination unit.