Ethylene

Technip is a world leader in designing steam crackers, from licensing through to construction for both grassroots plants (including mega-crackers) and plant expansions using it’s own proprietary technology.
Since the year 2000, Technip has engineered and implemented more that 7Mtpa of ethylene production representing 25% of the world’s total added capacity.

Technip has unique experience in the design and construction of large capacity units. Recent achievements include:

The world’s largest steam cracker with a capacity of 1.7 million tons per year at term, Designed by Technip, the unit went into operation in 2008 with an initial capacity of 1.38 million tons,
3 ethylene units with a capacity of over 1.3 million tons per year each,
4 ethylene units with a capacity of over 1 million tons each.

Key References


Ethylene production	Ethylene Units - from Design to Delivery

Proprietary Cracking Furnace Technology

SMK coil technology for gas feed, the SMK technology enables selectivity optimization and to obtain very large capacity furnaces. The largest capacity furnace in the world uses SMK technology and has a capacity of 210,000 tons per year of ethylene (per furnace cell). Over the last 10 years, Technip's SMK technology has been installed in 94 furnaces, delivering a capacity of 13.0 Mtpa representing 10% of today's world ethylene production capacity.
GK6 coil technology for liquid feed, is applied in new furnaces and for the modernization of existing furnaces. This technology enables a 35% increase in ethylene production over the original capacity of the cracking furnaces. This increase is obtained by replacing the radiant coils. In addition, this technology enables the furnace to operate on a range of feedstocks from naphta to heavy oils, with high selectivity and long on-stream time. Technip's GK6 technology has been applied in more than 76 furnaces in the last ten years, delivering a production capacity of 6.2 Mtpa.
SFT (Swirl Flow Tube) Technology which uses helical tubes that enable improved thermal exchange coefficients can be used in SMK and GK6 furnaces and further improves performance (selectivity, capacity and run-length).

Proprietary Separation Technology

The separation sections downstream from the cracking furnaces are based on the progressive separation technology developed by Technip, which allows energy consumption to be minimized thereby lowering CO2 emissions. This technology is applied in all types of separation sequences mentioned below:

Front-end hydrogenation coupled with either front-end de-ethanizer or front-end de-propanizer is available for gas or liquid crackers. This technology is applied in a plant in operation in Kuwait since 2008.
Back-end hydrogenation coupled with front-end de-methanizer, is applied for either gas or liquid crackers. This technology is applied in a plant in operation in Saudi Arabia since 2009 and in another under construction in Qatar.
Technip’s partnership agreement with Wieland for the use of enhanced heat exchangers in Ehtylene plants enables energy consumption and CO2 emissions to be even further reduced.

SPYRO® Furnace Design and Optimization Software

SPYRO® is a Technip proprietary furnace design and optimization software that predicts the steam-cracking yield of various gas or liquid feedstocks.

It uses 7000 chemical reactions implementing 240 elements. It has been adopted by more than 70% of ethylene producers worldwide to optimize production.

For more information visit www.spyrosuite.com.