CH 4202 COMPREHENSIVE DESIGN PROJECT

GROUP REPORT

PRODUCTION OF ETHYLENE FROM

NATURAL GAS

Name Index Number

Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M 100331P

Mihiranga P.A.D 100339X

Nivegithan P 100361G

Perera A.T.K 100375D

Perera S.M.H.D 100390T

01st of September 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This report is a result of many attempts performed by our group with the support and
supervision given by many people. First we would like to express our sincere gratitude to
Head of the Department of Chemical & Process Engineering, Dr. P. G. Rathnasiri for the
courage and enthusiasm given us.

Our special and heartfelt gratitude goes to our project coordinator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha
Egodage whome without her guidance given throughout the process from the beginning to
the end this project would be distant from reality.

We are also grateful to the module coordinator Dr. (Mrs.) Olga Gunapala for facilitating us to
carry out this project which made us to apply the process engineering knowledge we gained
throughout all these years, to a real time environment.

We are so thankful to Prof. (Mrs.) Padma Amarasinghe and all the lecturers in the
Department of Chemical and Process Engineering for the assistance and guidance given us in
various ways for this design project.

We would also like to thank Mr. Poorna Weerarathane for the support given at the simulation
stage of the design project.

We must also thank our fellow colleagues of Department of Chemical and Process
Engineering for the support they have given to success this report.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMERY

Ethylene is a widely used industrial chemical and has many applications in producing
commercial products like polyethylene, ethylene dichloride, etc. Ethylene is commercially
produced mostly by steam cracking of Natural Gas or Naphtha. Global demand for ethylene
has increased rapidly over last few years and economists forecast an increment of 10 million
tons per year. In Sri Lanka imports of ethylene based products was 52,000 metric tons (MT)
in year 2011. This can be expected to be a higher figure with global increment of ethylene
demand. To supply this demand production of ethylene can be considered.

The selected best way of producing ethylene in the country is steam cracking of Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG) as there‘s huge potential of having Natural Gas in Mannar basin oil
exploration blocks. However at the beginning LNG is imported and having high ethane
percentage ―Qatari Gas‖ is selected as the best LNG source for the production. The methane
in LNG is used as a power source for the process.

During the process a considerable amount of gaseous emissions like SOx, NOx, Volatile
Organic Compounds and CO2, liquid effluents of cooling water, storm water and other
discharges and solid wastes of spent catalyst and organic sludge are generated. These are to
be treated and controlled to meet the Environmental, Health and Safety guidelines for the
industry. Safety is another key factor that is addressed thoroughly as the process involves
many types of health and safety hazards. Analyzing the process conditions, process
equipment, utilities, raw material and product safety data and plant facility layout all the
hazards are categorized as electrical, fire, physical, material handling, health or personnel
safety hazards and they are to be eliminate and mitigate through engineering and
administrative controls and using Personal Protective Equipment in order to ensure a safe and
healthy working environment.

The production facility is designed to produce 100,000 MT of ethylene per year processing
601,595.9 MT of LNG per year. Total energy needed for the production facility is supplied
via power generation using methane side streams and the excess energy is to be sold. The
cost of 1MT of ethylene is Rs.168,280 and energy generation costs Rs. 18,660 million.
Revenue from ethylene is Rs.20,641 million resulting in a net profit of Rs.2,500 million per
year, a payback period of 8.5 years (nearly 102 months) and an annual rate of return of
8.72%.
(Key words: Liquefied Natural Gas, Steam cracking, methane, ethylene)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................................. i
EXECUTIVE SUMMERY ........................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................vii
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER 01 – INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 02 – LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 4
2.1 Ethylene ....................................................................................................................... 4
2.1.1 Identity ................................................................................................................. 4
2.1.2 Physical Properties of Ethylene ........................................................................... 4
2.1.3 Environmental Parameters ................................................................................... 5
2.1.4 Biodegradation ..................................................................................................... 5
2.1.5 Toxicology ........................................................................................................... 5
2.1.6 Applications of Ethylene...................................................................................... 6
2.2 Market Analysis .......................................................................................................... 8
2.2.1 Global View of Ethylene Demand and Capacity ................................................. 8
2.2.2 Ethylene Demand in Sri Lanka .......................................................................... 10
2.3 Raw Materials Suitable for Commercial Production Ethylene ................................. 11
2.3.1 Naphtha .............................................................................................................. 11
2.3.2 Natural Gas ........................................................................................................ 12
2.3.2.1 Availability of Natural Gas in Sri Lanka ....................................................... 13
2.3.3 Other Raw Materials .......................................................................................... 16
2.3.3.1 Synthesis Gas ................................................................................................. 16
2.3.3.2 Methanol......................................................................................................... 16
2.3.3.3 Ethanol ........................................................................................................... 17
2.4 Raw Material Selection ............................................................................................. 19
2.4.1 Natural Gas Composition and Source ................................................................ 21
2.4.2 Future Trends of Natural Gas ............................................................................ 22
2.5 Available Processes for Commercial Production of Ethylene .................................. 23
2.5.1 Thermal Cracking .............................................................................................. 23
2.5.2 Catalytic Cracking ............................................................................................. 25
2.5.2.1 Fluidized Catalytic Cracking of Naphtha ....................................................... 25

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 2.5.2.2 Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane ........................................................... 26
2.5.3 Fisher-Tropsch Synthesis ................................................................................... 26
2.5.4 Methanol to Olefins Technology ....................................................................... 27
2.5.5 Oxidative Coupling of Methane......................................................................... 28
2.6 Process Selection ....................................................................................................... 28
CHAPTER 03 – ETHYLENE MANUFACTURING PROCESS ........................................... 29
3.1 Process Flow Sheet.................................................................................................... 31
CHAPTER 04 – PLANT SITING AND LAYOUT ................................................................ 32
4.1 Plant Location ........................................................................................................... 32
4.2 Land ........................................................................................................................... 32
4.3 Population Density (53)............................................................................................... 32
4.4 Wind Pattern.............................................................................................................. 33
4.5 Feasibility of Transporting Materials ........................................................................ 34
4.6 Selected Material Transporting mechanism .............................................................. 35
4.7 Plant Layout .............................................................................................................. 35
CHAPTER 05 – ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH AND SAFETY ............................................. 39
5.1 Environmental Impact ............................................................................................... 39
5.1.1 Air Pollution....................................................................................................... 39
5.1.2 Waste Water ....................................................................................................... 43
5.1.3 Solid Wastes....................................................................................................... 46
5.2 Personal Safety .......................................................................................................... 47
5.2.1 Heat .................................................................................................................... 47
5.2.2 Noise .................................................................................................................. 47
5.2.3 Vibration ............................................................................................................ 48
5.2.4 Respiratory Hazards ........................................................................................... 49
5.2.5 Electrical Hazards .............................................................................................. 51
5.2.6 Physical Hazards ................................................................................................ 54
5.2.6.1 Slip and Fall Hazards ..................................................................................... 54
5.2.6.2 Physical Hazards Due to Tools and Machineries ........................................... 55
5.3 Material Handling and Storage ................................................................................. 57
5.3.1 Natural gas storage ............................................................................................. 57
5.3.2 Transportation of Liquefied Natural Gas ........................................................... 57
5.3.3 Ethylene storage ................................................................................................. 58

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 5.3.4 Transportation of Ethylene ................................................................................ 59
5.3.5 Handling and Disposal of Samples of Ethylene ................................................ 59
5.3.6 Material selection ............................................................................................... 60
5.3.7 Operation of Storage Facility ............................................................................. 60
5.4 Fire Hazards .............................................................................................................. 61
5.4.1 Fire hazards involved in the process .................................................................. 62
5.4.2 Fire safety........................................................................................................... 62
CHAPTER 06 – MATERIAL AND ENERGY BALANCE THINKING PROCESS ............ 63
6.1 Process Flow ............................................................................................................. 64
6.1.1 Primary De-Methanizer ..................................................................................... 64
6.1.2 Primary De-Ethanizer ........................................................................................ 67
6.1.3 Cracker ............................................................................................................... 67
6.1.4 Compressors ....................................................................................................... 70
6.1.5 Pre-Scrubber ...................................................................................................... 70
6.1.6 NaOH tower ....................................................................................................... 70
6.1.7 Heat exchangers (chiller train) ........................................................................... 71
6.1.8 Flash separator ................................................................................................... 71
6.1.9 Secondary De-Methanizer ................................................................................. 72
6.1.10 Secondary De-Ethanizer .................................................................................... 74
6.1.11 Heat exchanger................................................................................................... 74
6.1.12 Acetylene converter ........................................................................................... 75
6.1.13 Ethylene Fractionator ......................................................................................... 76
6.2 Utility Requirements ................................................................................................. 77
6.2.1 Electricity ........................................................................................................... 77
6.4 Material Balance ....................................................................................................... 81
6.5 Energy Balance ......................................................................................................... 89
CHAPTER 07 – ECONOMIC ANALYSIS .......................................................................... 105
7.1 Total Capital Cost.................................................................................................... 105
7.2 Capital Investment Cost (87) ..................................................................................... 106
7.2.1 Fixed Capital Investment Cost ......................................................................... 106
7.2.1.1 Direct Costs .................................................................................................. 106
7.2.1.2 Indirect Costs................................................................................................ 109
7.2.1.3 Contingency Allocation................................................................................ 109

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 7.2.1.4 Working Capital Investment ........................................................................ 109
7.3 Total Manufacturing Cost ....................................................................................... 110
7.3.1 Fixed Charges .................................................................................................. 110
7.3.2 Direct Material Cost ......................................................................................... 111
7.3.3 Direct Labor Cost ............................................................................................. 111
7.3.4 Direct other costs ............................................................................................. 112
7.3.5 Plant overheads ................................................................................................ 113
7.4 Period Costs............................................................................................................. 114
7.4.1 Administration cost .......................................................................................... 114
7.4.2 Selling and distribution cost............................................................................. 114
7.4.3 Research and development cost ....................................................................... 114
7.4.4 Financial costs .................................................................................................. 114
7.5 Total Production Cost.............................................................................................. 115
7.6 Total Revenue ......................................................................................................... 115
7.7 Economical Evaluation of the Project ..................................................................... 117
7.7.1 Profits ............................................................................................................... 117
7.7.2 Payback period ................................................................................................. 118
7.7.3 Rate of Return .................................................................................................. 118
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... ix
APPENDICES .......................................................................................................................xxii

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Identity of Ethylene .................................................................................................. 4

Table 2.2: Physical Properties of Ethylene ................................................................................ 4
Table 2.3: Environmental Parameters of Ethylene .................................................................... 5
Table 2.4: Toxicology Details on Ethylene ............................................................................... 5
Table 2.5: Top Ten Ethylene Plants in the World ................................................................... 10
Table 2.6: Lowest and Highest Ethylene Producing Countries ............................................... 10
Table 2.7: Typical Compositions of Natural Gas .................................................................... 12
Table 2.8: Gail India Ltd. Natural Gas Prices .......................................................................... 14
Table 2.9: Typical Compositions of Syn Gas .......................................................................... 16
Table 2.10: World consumption of different raw materials for the production of ethylene .... 19
Table 2.11: Yield of ethylene as per the raw materials............................................................ 19
Table 2.12: Energy requirements for naphtha and natural gas feed stocks ............................. 20
Table 2.13: Typical compositions of some commercially produced natural gas types ........... 21
Table 2.14: Typical Product Streams Obtained From Cracking Various Ethylene Plant
Feedstocks ................................................................................................................................ 24
Table 4.1: Safety Zones and Processing Areas of the Plant .................................................... 36
Table 5.1: Environmental impact per 1000 MJ of energy from natural gas ............................ 40
Table 5.2: Emissions to environment from a 400,000 MTY ethylene plant............................ 40
Table 5.3: Air Emissions Guidelines ....................................................................................... 42
Table 5.4: Effluents Guidelines ............................................................................................... 45
Table 5.5: Emissions, effluents waste/co-products generation for lower olefins .................... 46
Table 5.6: Noise Level Guidelines........................................................................................... 48
Table 5.7: Respiratory Hazards and TWA values of substances used in the process .............. 49
Table 5.8: Effect of current on human body ............................................................................ 52
Table 6.1: Distribution of feed components between distillate and bottom ............................ 65
Table 6.2: Conversion of different feed stocks in cracker ....................................................... 68
Table 6.3: Pumps required for the process............................................................................... 78
Table 6.4: Electricity requirement by Re-boilers ..................................................................... 79
Table 7.1: Material cost ......................................................................................................... 111

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Development of Global Ethylene Capacity by Region ........................................... 8

Figure 2.2: Global Ethylene Equivalent Production Capacity and Demand ............................. 9
Figure 2.3: Naphtha Total Production by Country in 2010 in thousand metric tons .............. 11
Figure 2.4: Natural Gas Gross Production by Country in 2010 in Terajouls .......................... 13
Figure 2.5: Mannar basin ......................................................................................................... 15
Figure 2.6: Global Methanol Production in 2013 .................................................................... 17
Figure 2.7: Global Ethanol Production .................................................................................... 18
Figure 4.1: Population Density - Hambantota District ............................................................ 33
Figure 4.2: The Cumulative of the wind speeds as broken up into eight points in the compass
for Hambantota for different months ....................................................................................... 34
Figure 4.3: Shipping density for the global maritime transport system ................................... 34
Figure 4.4: Proposed Site for Ethylene Production Facility .................................................... 37
Figure 4.5: Plant Layout .......................................................................................................... 38
Figure 5.1: LNG Carrier and Storage Tanks ............................................................................ 57

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CHAPTER 01 – INTRODUCTION

Ethylene is a widely used industrial chemical which has many industrial applications in
producing various industrial chemicals and commercial products like polyethylene, ethylene
dichloride, etc. Ethylene is also known by its IUPAC name ethene is a flammable, colorless
gas with a sweetest odor. Ethylene is commercially produced by thermal or catalytic cracking
of ethane, derives from various raw material sources like naphtha, natural gas and etc and
also using several novel technologies.

The global production of ethylene has increased rapidly over last few years to satisfy the
increasing demand of ethylene based secondary materials which can be expected to last in
long run. The largest ethylene capacity expansion was observed from 2007 to 2012 with a 4%
annual compounding growth rate and the global production of ethylene in 2012 was 155.9
million tons. This huge demand of ethylene is satisfied by large scale production facilities as
well as several small scale production facilities.

In economists view the increment of demand for ethylene is 10 million tons per year. The
most important thing is, they predict that American countries trying to target Asian region to
export their ethylene derivatives as the region shows a high demand for ethylene and its
derivatives. Being an Asian country, as per the records of Sri Lanka customs, Sri Lanka‘s
imports of various derivatives of ethylene was about 52,000 MT in 2011 and this can be
expected be a higher figure by now.

To supply this demand production of ethylene can be considered. Ethylene production from
naphtha and natural gas uses mostly the steam cracking and sometimes catalytic cracking.
Naphtha is only available in Sri Lanka from petroleum refinery which produces 340,000 MT
naphtha per year and for natural gas, it should be either imported or there‘s a huge potential
of having natural gas in Mannar basin blocks. Other than these raw materials like syn gas,
methanol and ethanol are used to produce ethylene with some novel technologies.

Considering all the factors, the best option for Sri Lanka to produce ethylene is steam
cracking of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). ―Qatari gas‖ in liquefied form is used for the
production and process will follow a set of distillation columns before and after the cracker
and several other equipment such as heat exchangers, compressors and other separation
towers before it is converted to commercial ethylene. Methane in natural gas is used as a
power source for the process.

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Since the process uses LNG as raw material the emissions to environment and its impact
should be thoroughly addressed. Emissions of acidification such as SOx, NOx, Volatile
Organic Compounds and CO2 are considerable and these emissions are to be controlled to
meet standards through process optimization and other controlling methods.

Liquid effluents include in the process are cooling water, storm water, hydrotesting
discharges, sewage and general water usage. These are controlled and treated following the
International Finance Corporation Environment, Health and Safety guidelines. Moreover the
solid waste generated like organic sludge, spent catalyst, coke and etc are to be treated and
reuse or reclaim where possible.

Safety acts as a key factor for the existence of chemical process plants in the global scenario
and therefore all kinds of hazards involve with the plant and plant personnel are analyzed
beforehand and special care is given to avoid or mitigate these hazards. As the process
involves high temperature equipment and large rotating machines heat, noise and vibration
hazards present in the plant and these may cause minor to severe losses to plant personnel.
Also a large number of chemicals are used throughout the process which may cause
respiratory disorders in people. These should be eliminated or otherwise minimized through
engineering and administrative controls or PPE.

Being a major utility, electricity also may become a hazard at some points leading to short
circuiting or to fires. Therefore the insulations and other safety measures should be taken care
of thoroughly. And throughout the process flow the involvement of machineries, tools and
equipment including plant facility design may cause various physical hazards leading to
physical damages to plant personnel. Therefore the designing of plant facility should
eliminate these to a maximum and handling of tools and equipment and operation of
machinery should be done by trained and competent personnel.

Material handling and storage is another key factor to be addressed to ensure plant safety.
Raw materials and products should be stored using internationally recognized standard
methods as most of the materials involve with process are highly flammable gases. And the
transportation of raw material and product from purchasing to selling should be done in
standard ways that are established such as pipelines or cargo ships and these should be
inspected regularly.

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Further there are fire hazards like chemicals, high temperature processes and electrical
equipment involve with the process. These are to categorize into fire grades accordingly and
a separate fire-fighting system is to be installed for the plant and its personnel safety.
Through addressing all these areas of process and its safety an ethylene production facility
that is carefully designed can be obtained.

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CHAPTER 02 – LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Ethylene

Ethylene (C2H4) is a widely used industrial chemical that has many application in producing
various other industrial chemicals and commercial products. Though ethylene has no end use
in its base form, it is well-known as the building block used to produce polyethylene, and
many other petrochemicals. Ethylene also known as in its IUPAC name as ethene, is a
flammable, colorless gas with a sweetest odor. It is mainly produced industrially by thermal
or catalytic cracking of ethane (C2H6) and many other raw material sources such as natural
gas, naphtha etc. are used to obtain ethane. Ethylene production being the economic indicator
of the organic chemical industry of a country, itself shows the importance of it.

2.1.1 Identity
Table 2.1: Identity of Ethylene (1)
Name (IUPAC) Ethylene
CAS number 74-85-1
Molecular formula CH2CH2
Molecular Weight 28.05
Other names Ethene, Acetene, Bicarburetted hydrogen,
Olefiant gas

2.1.2 Physical Properties of Ethylene

Table 2.2: Physical Properties of Ethylene (1)

Melting Point - 169.15 °C
Boiling Point - 103.71 °C
Density 0.57 g/m3 (at boiling point)
Vapor Pressure 4.27 MPa at 0°C
Partition Coefficient (Log Pow) 1.13 (calculated)
Water Solubility 131 mg/l at 20 °C

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2.1.3 Environmental Parameters

Table 2.3: Environmental Parameters of Ethylene (1)

Photodegradation Lifetime = 0.37 to 4 days

best estimate = 1.45 days
Monitoring Data In air:
Rural areas < 1 - 5 μg/m3
Urban areas < 50 μg/m3
Heavy traffic < 1000 μg/m3
Occupational exposure < 5 mg/m3
In water:
Baseline 6.0 μg/l
Polluted areas 44 μg/l
Biodegradation Biodegradation in water:
Aerobic: T1/2 = 1 - 28 days
Anaerobic: T1/2 = 72 - 112 days

2.1.4 Biodegradation

Ethylene is subject to biodegradation by various microorganisms and that Ethylene oxide and
Ethylene glycol are most likely initial degradation products. (1)

2.1.5 Toxicology
Table 2.4: Toxicology Details on Ethylene (1)

Parameter Method Value

Acute Inhalation Using mice LD50 = 950,000 ppm
Toxicity
Repeated Dose Toxicity Using rat, SD NOEC > 10,000 ppm
Bacterial Test Using E.coli neg. (With metabolic
(Gene mutation) activation)
neg. (Without metabolic
activation
Non-Bacterial In Vitro-Test Using CHO cells neg. (With metabolic
(Chromosomal aberrations) activation)

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 neg. (Without metabolic
activation
Carcinogenicity Using rat 2 years inhalation study
negative
Toxicity toReproduction Using rat NOEL = 5,000 ppm (General
(Inhalation administration) toxicity)
NOEL = 5,000 ppm (Repro.
Tox.)
Experience with Human Work place exposure ≤ 4
mg/m3
Peak levels ≤ 50 mg/m3

2.1.6 Applications of Ethylene

Ethylene is a very important industrial feedstock in synthesizing various other industrial

chemicals, to highlight some important industrial chemicals produced from Ethylene are
Polyethylene, Ethylene dichloride (precursor for PVC), Ethylene oxide (EO) for
Monoethylene glycol (MEG), precursor for polystyrene and many more can be mentioned.
Industrial importance of Ethylene is clearly evinced by global production of ethylene being
110 million tons in 2009 and is forecast to grow by 4% per year up to 2014.

 Synthesis of polyethylene – This is the most prominent application of ethylene. It is

produced through the polymerization of ethylene. Polyethylene is used in production
of wide range of plastic products. Polyethylene are synthesized in different types
according to densities such as low density poly ethylene, high density polyethylene,
and according to skeletal structures such as linear low density poly ethylene and linear
high density poly ethylene. Sixty percent of world ethylene production goes to
making polyethylene and it indicates the huge demand for the polyethylene. (2)

 Synthesis of vinyl acetate – Vinyl acetate is colorless liquid with a pungent odor.it is
the precursor to polyvinyl acetate which is an important polymer in industry. It
produced from the reaction of ethylene and acetic acid on exposure to air in the
presence of a Palladium (II) catalyst and Copper (II) chloride. If water is used instead
of acetic acid, the reaction yields vinyl alcohol. The catalytic production of
acetaldehyde from ethylene and water is called the Wacker process. Vinyl alcohol is

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 an isomer of acetaldehyde and ethylene oxide and it is the precursor to poly vinyl
alcohol

 Synthesis of vinyl chloride – Vinyl chloride is the precursor to famous polymer poly
vinyl chloride. It is prepared by chlorination and subsequent de-hydrochlorination of
ethylene.

 Synthesis of ethylene glycol – Ethylene glycol is used as a raw material in the

manufacture of polyester fibers and fabric industry, and polyethylene terephthalate
resins. Ethylene oxide is synthesized by the oxidation of ethylene with oxygen in the
presence of a silver catalyst and then hydrolysis of ethylene oxide yields ethylene
glycol.

 Synthesis of ethylene chloride (3)

– Ethylene chloride is obtained by reaction of
hydrogen chloride with ethylene. It is used to produce the tetraethyl lead which is
added to gasoline to improve the octane number and hence reduce knocking.

 Synthesis of ethyl benzene – Ethyl benzene is obtained from the reaction of ethylene
and benzene. It is a precursor to styrene which can be polymerized to form
polystyrene and styrene butadiene rubber.

 In agriculture – Ethylene is a plant ripening hormone which is produced in all higher

plants and is produced from methionine in essentially all tissues.

Metabolism Functions (4)

o Stimulates the release of dormancy.
o Stimulates shoot and root growth and differentiation
o May have a role in adventitious root formation.
o Stimulates leaf and fruit abscission.
o Stimulates Bromeliad flower induction.
o Induction of femaleness in dioecious flowers.
o Stimulates flower opening.
o Stimulates flower and leaf senescence.
o Stimulates fruit ripening.

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2.2 Market Analysis

2.2.1 Global View of Ethylene Demand and Capacity

Global ethylene capacity has increased rapidly over last few years to meet the increasing
demand for the production of ethylene based secondary material and this trend can be
expected in the long run. The world witnessed the largest ethylene capacity expansion in the
last few years as the capacity has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 4% between
2007 and 2012. In 2012, the global capacity of ethylene has reached to 155.9 million tons. (5)

Figure 2.1: Development of Global Ethylene Capacity by Region (5)

As predicted by experts, by 2023, the global ethylene production will show an increment of
47 million tons per year compared to year 2012. Further from this growth, 24 million tons of
production will be ethane and LPG based and 15 million tons will be naphtha based
production. (6)

Consequently, there is no doubt that Ethylene demand will increase in the future too. When
the latest growth of ethylene production is considered, it can be seen that, the Middle Eastern
countries have achieved a massive improvement in ethylene production. Asian countries are
also in the track. According to ICIS, the world‘s largest petrochemical market information
provider, Gulf Corporation Countries (GCC) and Asian countries will have average annual

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growth rates of 15% and 14% respectively. Proving that in 2012 alone, 2.1 million tons per
year was added by GCC countries. It is 47% from the global capacity additions in 2012. (5)

As mentioned earlier, Demand of ethylene derivatives also seems to be increasing in future.

According to Economists that increment is 10 million tons per year. Most important thing is
that according to economists, American countries going to target Asian countries to export
their ethylene derivatives. Economists say that North American additions of key ethylene
derivatives could grow over 11 million tons per year by 2023. It is a doubled level compared
(7)
to 2012. In Asian Countries like china, India, Malaysia, Thailand etc. there is a high
demand for ethylene and its derivatives. Compared to other regions like East Europe, Latin
America, Africa etc., a big production capacity and a big demand of ethylene can be seen in
Asian region. This growth is represented in the following figure. (8)

Figure 2.2: Global Ethylene Equivalent Production Capacity and Demand

Normally ethylene production in the world is not in small scale plants. But there are low level
manufacturing plants are also available in the world. Following are top ten ethylene
complexes and the countries which have largest and lowest level production of ethylene in
the year ending from 31 December 2011. (According to the level of production)

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 Table 2.5: Top Ten Ethylene Plants in the World (9)

Company Location Capacity tpy

Formosa Petrochemical Corp. Mailian, Taiwan 2,935,000
Nova Chemicals Corp. Joffre, Alta 2,811,792
Arabian Petrochemical Co. Jubail, Saudi Arabia 2,250,000
ExxonMobil Chemical Co. Baytown, Tex. 2,197,000
ChevronPhillips Chemical Co. Sweeny, Tex. 1,865,000
Dow Chemical Co. Terneuzen, Netherlands 1,800,000
Ineos Olefins & Polymers Chocolate Bayou, Tex. 1,752,000
Equistar Chemicals LP Channelview, Tex. 1,750,000
Yanbu Petrochemical Co. Yanbu, Saudi Arabia 1,705,000
Equate Petrochemical Co. Shuaiba, Kuwait 1,650,000

Table 2.6: Lowest and Highest Ethylene Producing Countries (10)

Countries with lowest level production Countries with highest level production
Country Tons per year Country Tons per year
United states 27593205 Greece 20000
Saudi Arabia 13155000 Chile 45000
China 12978000 Switzerland 33000
Japan 7265000 North Korea 60000
Germany 5743000 Kazakhstan 130000

2.2.2 Ethylene Demand in Sri Lanka

Though, different derivatives of ethylene are imported, there are no imports of ethylene to Sri
Lanka in its raw form. According to the import data published by Sri Lanka Customs on
ethylene based polymer products, the annual imports of ethylene based derivatives such as
low density PE, high density PE products etc. was about 52,000 metric tons per year in 2011.
(11)
Since the demand for these products in Sri Lanka increases each and every year, the
current demand could be a higher value than the above figure.

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2.3 Raw Materials Suitable for Commercial Production Ethylene

2.3.1 Naphtha

A class of colorless, volatile, flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixtures is usually termed as

naphtha which is obtained as a more volatile fraction in the fractional distillation of
(12)
hydrocarbon feeds. The naphtha primarily consisting of aliphatic hydrocarbons with
boiling points higher than gasoline and lower than kerosene that is obtained as petroleum
distillate is commonly called as petroleum naphtha. Similarly, coal-tar naphtha is obtained by
distillation of coal tar and shale naphtha by the distillation of oil produced from destructive
distillation of bituminous shale. (13) Since, Naphtha is the first distillation product of
petroleum distillation, the composition of Naphtha derived, is dependent on the composition
of the crude oil used. As a result, it is difficult to give a specific definition to Naphtha and
(14)
therefore, it is a generic term rather than a specific term . Ethylene is most commonly
(15)
produced from naphtha by steam cracking and alternative methods such as catalytic
cracking, Advance Olefins Technology (16) can also be used.

Figure 2.3: Naphtha Total Production by Country in 2010 in thousand metric tons (17)

The only available source to obtain naphtha in Sri Lanka is from residual products after
refining crude oil. Ceylon Petroleum Corporation produces 940 MT of naphtha unifiner
per day. This leads to a production of 340000 MT of naphtha per year. (18)

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2.3.2 Natural Gas

Natural gas is a mixture of different quantities of gaseous hydrocarbons and non-

hydrocarbons which are commonly referred as impurities. The major components of Natural
gas are methane, ethane, propane and butane. Other than that, there are small quantities of
heavier hydrocarbons and gaseous non-hydrocarbons such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide and
hydrogen sulfide (19)
Table 2.7: Typical Compositions of Natural Gas (19)

Compound Molar Fraction

Hydrocarbons
Methane 0.75 – 0.99
Ethane 0.01 – 0.15
Propane 0.01 – 0.10
n-Butane 0.00 – 0.02
Isobutane 0.00 – 0.01
n-Pentane 0.00 – 0.01
Isopentane 0.00 – 0.01
Hexane 0.00 – 0.01
Heptane and other hydrocarbons 0.00 – 0.001
Nonhydrocarbons
Nitrogen 0.00 – 0.15
Carbon dioxide 0.00 – 0.30
Hydrogen sulfide 0.00 – 0.30
Helium 0.00 – 0.05

Natural gas is formed by the exposure of depositions of plant and animal material buried in
the ground to severe heat and pressure for long periods of time. Wells are drilled in the
ground to reach these gas deposits in order to extract natural gas. Then the gas is treated to
remove the impurities including above mentioned non-hydrocarbons, water vapor and
mercury if necessary before it is sold to the final consumer. (20) Methane and ethane the two
major components of natural gas are separated out and used to produce ethane by different
(21)
methods. Ethane to ethylene conversion can be done by steam cracking and catalytic

Page | 12
 (22)
dehydrogenation. On the other hand, new technologies such as, Oxidative Coupling of
Methane is being developed to produce ethylene directly from methane. (23)

Figure 2.4: Natural Gas Gross Production by Country in 2010 in Terajouls (17)

2.3.2.1 Availability of Natural Gas in Sri Lanka

Natural gas can be either imported or it is possible to find the Sri Lanka‘s potential of having
natural gas in Mannar basin blocks which are explored by the expertise in the field of oil
exploration for potential of oil and gas.

 Import as Liquefied Natural Gas

The prices that vary daily at the global market per one mmbtu of natural gas differ
from country to country. In USA the price is about $ 14 where as in Japan or Korea
(24)
the prices are as high as 19$ . But with the distance that separate any of these
countries and Sri Lanka can cause to increment of these prices to a higher value. The
prices of Gail India limited in India vary in a wide range and different from customer
to customer. These can be listed as follows.

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 Table 2.8: Gail India Ltd. Natural Gas Prices (25)

Source Customers Gas Price

ONGC & OIL Customer outside North East $4.2/mmbtu

(APM)

ONGC & OIL Customer outside North East $4.5/ mmbtu($5.25/mmbtu for
(Non APM) offshore production)

ONGC & OIL Power & Fertilizer Customers in $ 2.52/mmbtu

(APM) North East

Panna Mukta & Weighted average price of PMT $5.65/mmbtu

Tapti JV (PMT) except RRVUNL & Torrent

Ravva GAIL $3.5/mmbtu

Ravva Satellite GAIL $4.3/mmbtu

KG-D6 All Consumers $4.2/mmbtu

Amguri Fields GAIL $2.52/mmbtu

(Canero)

Term R-LNG For all (vary on monthly baisi) $9.0 - $10.5/mmbtu

Spot-R-LNG Vary on cargo to cargo $ 12 - 17/ mmbtu

Therefore the best source to import LNG will be India as the total cost of gas per
mmbtu will be lower than the other options.

 Potential of Having Natural Gas Deposits in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has a history of oil exploration of about 40 years. With the current status of
oil exploration in Sri Lanka, in Mannar basin which has started again after 25 years it
is calculated that potential to have oil as 60%considering essential components that‘s
need to be satisfied to have petroleum accumulations. Those are mature rocks that can
expel hydrocarbons, resovoir rocks with pores that can trap hydrocarbons from
escaping reservoirs and traps to prevent hydrocarbon escaping. Mannar basin
occupies the offshore area to the west of the island from Mannar to Kalutara and it

Page | 14
extends to the west beyond the boundary of Sri Lanka and India. Mannar basin is
consisted with eight blocks and one of these blocks is contracted by Crain India
limited and in 2011 they discovered a potential gas reserve in this block which
estimated to be more than 1billion bbl (two trillion standard cubic feet) of gas. After a
discovery of oil or gas it takes about three years for the commercial production of
(26)
these resources . Therefore hopefully there‘s a greater potential to obtain natural
gas from Sri Lanka in very near future. This will solve the problems of shipping
installments and liquefying as gas can be delivered up to the site using pipe lines.

Figure 2.5: Mannar basin (27)

But the problem arises with obtaining natural gas from Mannar basin is that the
composition of gas is still unknown as the project is in development phase. Therefore
this will create problems at design phase of the plant as separation is one of the major
operations involved in the process.

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2.3.3 Other Raw Materials

2.3.3.1 Synthesis Gas

Synthesis Gas (abbreviated as ‘Syn Gas’) also known as producer gas is a mixture of carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen which is produced by gasification or pyrolysis of
(28)
carbon containing material such as coal, bio-mass, plastics and municipal waste and
(29)
petroleum based materials such as natural gas, liquid gas and naphtha (30).It has given the
name ‗Synthesis Gas‘ due to its use as an intermediate raw material which used to synthesis
other materials such as synthetic natural gas, methanol, ammonia and olefins, etc. (29)During
gasification, these carbon containing materials are exposed to high temperatures in an
atmosphere with controlled concentration of oxygen. Since, Syn Gas is derived from a
biological origin, it is considered to be a renewable material or energy source. The
composition of Syn Gas is dependent on the feedstock to the gasifier and the inclusion of tars,
moisture and varying hydrogen levels cause issues for the quality of the product Syn Gas. (28)

Table 1.9: Typical Compositions of Syn Gas (28)

Component Composition
Hydrogen 20 – 40
Carbon monoxide 35 – 40
Carbon dioxide 25 – 35
Methane 0 – 15
Nitrogen 2–5

Ethylene can be derived directly from Syn Gas by Fisher-Tropsch process (31) or else, Syn
Gas can be first converted into methanol and then into ethylene.

2.3.3.2 Methanol

Methanol also known as Methyl alcohol or Wood alcohol is a light colorless, flammable
liquid at room temperature. Since it is the simplest alcohol of all of that kind with formula
CH3OH, it contains less carbon and more hydrogen when compared to any other liquid fuel.
(32)
It is one of the most important chemical raw material used to synthesis many other value
added products ranging from simple startup material in paints, solvents and plastics to
applications in energy, transportation fuel and fuel cells. (32)

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In the past, methanol was produced predominantly as a byproduct of the destructive
distillation of wood and as a result, it was used to call as wood alcohol. But, today methanol
is basically produced from methane from natural gas or by all types of biomass, coal and
even from CO2 emitted from power plants. (32) This feedstock is first converted into synthesis
gas by catalytic reforming of steam and feedstock gas or by partial oxidation. (32) Ethylene can
be derived from methanol by Methanol to Olefins Technology. (33)In 2013, the world demand
for methanol was expected to reach 65 million MT.

Figure 2.6: Global Methanol Production in 2013 (34)

When considering methanol, compared to other raw materials this is an expensive choice as
methanol is mainly imported to Sri Lanka as Sri Lanka does not own any methanol
production facility and the cost is relatively very high compared to the price of LNG. Prices
may differ around 430 USD (35) to 530 USD per Metric ton of methanol.

2.3.3.3 Ethanol

Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol, alcohol spirit, grain alcohol, absolute alcohol or ethyl
hydrate is a colorless, flammable organic liquid at the room temperature that is miscible with
all proportions of water, ether, acetone, benzene and some other organic solvents. Ethanol
that is used as industrial alcohol is derived from hydration of ethylene in which the process is
(19)
referred to as 'Chemical Synthesis' But in countries like the United States and Brazil ,
ethanol that is used as an alternative fuel is largely produced form starch or sugar based

Page | 17
feedstock such as corn, sugar cane, grain or cellulosic biomass such as grass by fermentation
and distillation. (36) Green ethylene can be produced by catalytic dehydration of above ethanol
made from renewable sources. (37)

Figure 2.7: Global Ethanol Production (91)

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2.4 Raw Material Selection

Though there are a number of raw materials for the production of ethylene, one them should
be selected that would fit better in Sri Lankan context.

Table 2.10: World consumption of different raw materials for the production of ethylene (19)

Raw material Consumption % (2002)

Ethane 29
Propane 8
Butane 3
Naphtha 53
Gas oil 6
Others 1

This indicates that Naphtha and Natural gas (which is a source of ethane) is vastly used in the
production of ethylene. This is mainly due to the availability of these raw materials.
Therefore the use of methanol as a raw material can be eliminated from the selection and it
can be concluded that most preferable raw material for Sri Lankan context is either Naphtha
or Natural gas.

Above statistics shows that even from naphtha and natural gas, naphtha is widely used in the
process of ethylene production. But the product yield of ethylene for these raw materials is
different from each other. The statistics shows that at any residence time of cracking ethane
gives a higher yield of ethylene than that can be obtained by naphtha.

Table 2.11: Yield of ethylene as per the raw materials (19)

Raw material
Ethane Residence 0.4607 0.3451 0.186 0.1133
time (s)
Conversion 51.88 52.31 52.85 53.43
Wt%
Low severity Residence 0.4836 0.3526 0.1784 0.1096
naphtha time (s)
Conversion 25.23 25.6 26.08 26.43
Wt%

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Medium severity Residence 0.4840 0.3572 0.1828 0.1132
naphtha time (s)
Conversion 27.95 28.45 29.24 29.87
Wt%
High severity Residence 0.4930 0.3640 0.1897 0.1170
naphtha time (s)
Conversion 30.25 30.81 31.74 32.38
Wt%

This shows that yield of ethylene from ethane is significantly greater than yield from naphtha.
And as per a previous section details ethane typically gives a yield of 78 Wt% of ethylene
under cracking conditions. Though Sri Lanka is capable of obtaining naphtha from residual
products of petroleum refinery the maximum yield of ethylene that can be obtained will be
about 100000 (340000 × 0.3) MT per year, if the naphtha is completely high severity
naphtha. This is not a promising situation for a plant that looks forward for continuous
production of ethylene. Therefore considering a availability and yield from ethane, it can be
concluded that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), which is a source of ethane to be selected as
the major raw material of the process.Further energy requirements for naphtha and natural
gas feed stocks can be illustrated as follows.

Table 2.12: Energy requirements for naphtha and natural gas feed stocks (38)

Feedstock Energy requirement

Ethane (Natural gas) 15 - 25 GJ/ t ethylene
Naphtha 25 – 40 GJ/ t ethylene
Source: EIPPCB BREF 2003

This shows that there is a significant increment in energy requirement for Naphtha feedstock.
This justifies our selection of natural gas as feed stock for the production of ethylene. And
within three years by October 2013, the production of ethylene from natural gas and naphtha
in Europe has been changed as 80 – 20 which was previously as 50 – 50 respectively (23).

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2.4.1 Natural Gas Composition and Source

Most of the natural gas produced commercially contain a higher percent of methane while the
percentage of all three components of ethane, propane and butane covers a percentage of
about 20%. For the purpose of ethylene production it is better to select a commercial natural
gas type that is consisted with a relative high percentage of ethane as it can give a higher
yield of ethylene. Typical compositions of several natural gas types around the world are as
follows,

Table 2.13: Typical compositions of some commercially produced natural gas types
Component Mole percent%
Union gas Dry gas Wet (rich) Associated Qatari
(39)
(Canada) (North sea gas (Algeria gas (Abu gas (41)
West sole) Hassi) (40) Dhabi
(40)
Zakum) (40)
Methane 95.0 94.4 83.5 76.0 76.6
Ethane 3.2 3.1 7.0 11.4 12.59
Propane 0.2 0.5 2.0 5.4 2.38
iso – butane 0.03 0.1 0.4 1.1 0.11
Normal butane 0.03 0.1 0.4 1.1 0.21
Pentane plus 0.03 0.2 0.4 1.3 0.02
Nitrogen 1.0 1.1 6.1 1.1 0.24
Carbon dioxide 0.5 0.5 0.2 2.3
Hydrogen sulfide 0.02 0 0 0.3 1.02
Calorific value 38 39.207 42.107 85.59 -
(MJ/m3)
Water - - - - 6.83

The above table illustrates the natural gas compositions of several producers around the
world. From those the highest percentage of ethane is included in ―Qatari gas (Qatar)‖.
12.59% of ethane is a considerably high content of ethane in natural gas. Therefore ―Qatari
gas (Qatar)‖ is selected as the source of natural gas for the production of ethylene. Therefore
the plant is to be designed to match following properties and characteristics of LNG.

Page | 21
Methane - 76.6 mol%
Ethane - 12.59 mol%
Propane - 2.38 mol%
Iso butane - 0.11 mol%
Normal butane - 0.21 mol%
Pentane plus - 0.02 mol%
Nitrogen - 0.24 mol%
Hydrogen sulfide - 1.02 mol%
Water - 6.83 mol%

2.4.2 Future Trends of Natural Gas

As discussed in a previous section, there is a huge potential of obtaining NG from Mannar

basin. Therefore the plant can be designed in such a way that it can be modified to match the
composition of natural gas from Mannar basin.

As Mannar basin occupies the offshore area to Kalutara and beyond Kalutara to west from
Mannar this natural gas can be easily transported using cryogenic pipelines and stored as
liquefied natural gas until it is used for the production.

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2.5 Available Processes for Commercial Production of Ethylene

2.5.1 Thermal Cracking

The most widespread method in the world to produce ethylene is by thermal cracking of
petroleum feed stocks, as currently it is considered to be the most economical process for
commercial production of ethylene. These petroleum feed stocks consist of wide range of
hydrocarbon compounds including naphtha, gasoil, natural gas and shale gas, etc. Based on
the availability of these raw materials, the different feed stocks are used to produce ethylene
in the different parts of the world.

Steam cracking of naphtha, gas oil and other more volatile condensates of petroleum
refineries is primarily used to produce ethylene in Europe and Asia. This process gives by
products such as propylene, C4 olefins and aromatics other than ethylene. In the US, Canada
and Middle East, ethylene is largely produced from thermal cracking of ethane and propane
in which process gives only ethylene and propylene as products. As a result, the construction
cost has become cheaper and it is less complicated to operate. (42)

The feedstock containing one or more compounds of ethane, propane, butane, naphtha and
gas oil are first fed into the steam cracking unit also known as the pyrolysis furnace which
can be considered as the heart of the production plant. In the steam cracking unit, the
feedstock are combined with steam and heated to a temperature range of 790 - 870oC. The
(43)
feedstock residence time in the furnace is as small as 0.2 seconds and the feedstock
molecules 'crack' to produce ethylene as well as methane, hydrogen, ethylene, propylene,
butadiene, benzene, toluene and other co-products. The pressure should be maintained at or
below atmospheric pressure for an optimum conversion.

However, increase of temperature increases product formation as reaction is endothermic. (44)

This product mixture is quenched in a quenching tower or in a Transfer Line Exchanger and
then sent to separation into different specified product streams. The operations in the rest of
the plant include compression, treatment to remove impurities (such as carbon dioxide,
hydrogen sulfide), hydrogenation of acetylenes, gas drying, distillation and heat transfer. The
mix of feedstock, the conditions at which the feedstock is cracked and the physical plant
design ultimately determines the amount of each product produced and for some of the
streams, the chemical composition of the stream.

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 Table 2.14: Typical Product Streams Obtained From Cracking Various Ethylene Plant
Feedstocks1

1
The data are representative of relative material balances from an ethylene plant with a
capacity of one billion pounds per year (453,592.37 MT per year) when feeding one
feedstock at the assumed severity conditions. Ethane and propane recycle to extinction is
assumed for all feedstock categories.
2
The data are generally based on propane recycle as well as ethane recycle.
3
Generally, iso-butane is not used as a feedstock for the production of ethylene. Some
studies, however, have developed material balances for iso/normal mixtures of butane.
The major differences when iso-butane is present in the feedstock are a higher feedstock
requirement and major increases in the production of propylene, butylenes, benzene and
methane-rich gas.
4
The ranges for this category are wide because naphtha is not uniformly defined; the
boiling-point range, and thus the average carbon chain length of the contained
hydrocarbons, may vary significantly, and cracking severity (temperature, residence time)
of heavy-liquid feedstock has a large effect on the final product balance. There is a
tendency in the industry to use light naphtha as such as field condensates and to use
lower-severity conditions to increase the yield of propylene.
5
Polymer-grade propylene production is assumed. (21)

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2.5.2 Catalytic Cracking

2.5.2.1 Fluidized Catalytic Cracking of Naphtha

Fluidized Catalytic Cracking is a secondary unit operation used to manufacture additional

gasoline in the refinery processes. Since, this process has the ability to produce smaller
molecules from larger molecules of hydrocarbon chains it produces by product gases which
are more olefinic and more valuable than thermal cracking. On the other hand, the catalyst
makes the reaction occur at lower reaction temperature as the activation energy of the
molecules for reaction is reduced. During the process of fluidized catalytic cracking, the
naphtha feedstock is passed through an alumino silicate catalyst called ‗Zeolite‘ (melting
point around 1000oC) which exists as a fine powder without oxidation and dissolving in
inorganic solvents heated about 700 – 800 K in the reactor.

Since the catalyst is a very fine power particle, it becomes fluidized and continuously flows
out of the reactor with the product streams. In the next stage, the catalyst is separated out
from the products, regenerated by burning off the deposited carbon at 900K and recycled
back into the reactor. This process yields a gaseous product chiefly consisting of ethane and
propane, a liquid stream containing branched-chain alkanes, cycloalkanes and aromatic
hydrocarbons and a residue stream with high boiling point oil that can be used as a fuel.
However, the product composition is dependent on the feedstock composition, temperature,
residence time and the catalyst used for the process. (15)

Though, Zeolites are believed not to be possessing harmful effects to environment one type
of zeolite (Erionite) is considered to be a carcinogen due to it fibrous nature and high iron
content. (45) Also issues will occur during the disposal of the catalyst after its effective life
such as finding a land for its disposal or storing it until regeneration. Further, enough data
about commercialization of catalytic cracking for ethylene production are not availalable.

A variant of the process is called Advanced Catalytic Olefins (ACO™) process in which
naphtha is cracked into large quantities of ethylene and propylene. However, ACO process
produces more propylene than ethylene typically with ratio 1:1 and 10 – 25 % (46) higher total
(47)
olefins yield at lower energy consumption and CO2 footprint at a production cost per
metric ton of ethylene up to $90 less than thermal cracking. (46)

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2.5.2.2 Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane

Though, steam cracking is currently the most effective industrial method to make ethylene,
researches are being carried out to find new processes for ethylene production where the plant
would require less energy, safe and easy to operate. Even, the catalytic cracking of naphtha
yields small concentrations of ethylene, oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane has high
selectivity and as a result, it gives over 80% of ethylene concentration in the product under
certain conditions. (48)
Therefore, it is believed that the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of ethane, which couples
the endothermic dehydration of ethane with the strongly exothermic oxidation of hydrogen, is
a potential alternative method to produce ethylene as it avoids the requirement of excessive
(49)
internal heat input. During this process, ethane is passed over a catalyst at a very high
pace velocity and it undergoes an exothermic reaction with oxygen, producing ethylene
(48)
selectively. The reaction can be considered as the simple dehydrogenation of ethane
combined with the combustion of produced hydrogen as follows.
C2H6 C2H4 + H2 Endothermic

H2 + ½ O2 H2O Highly exothermic

C2H6 + ½ O2 C2H4 + H2O Exothermic (50)

Hydrogen in the feed minimizes the possibility of over oxidation of the hydrocarbon. Since
the reaction is highly exothermic, the construction of expensive furnaces as in steam cracking
process is not required. (48)

2.5.3 Fisher-Tropsch Synthesis

What happens basically in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is converting mixture of carbon

monoxide and hydrogen (syn gas) into liquid hydrocarbons through collection of chemical
reactions under catalytic influence. Two main characteristics of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis are
the unavoidable production of wide range of hydrocarbon products , ideally having the
formula CnH2n+2 and the liberation of large amount of heat due to highly exothermic reactions
involved with Fischer-Topsch, as a result reactor design and process development has heavily
focused on heat removal and temperature control. Product distribution is influenced by
temperature, catalyst type, catalyst composition, feed gas composition, pressure. Basically
alkanes are produced by FT synthesis as follow,
(2n + 1) H2 + n CO → CnH(2n+2) + n H2O

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In addition to alkane formation, competing reactions give small amounts of alkenes, as well
as alcohols and other oxygenated hydrocarbons. The growth of the hydrocarbon chain occurs
as a repeated sequence in which hydrogen atoms are added to carbon and oxygen. The
following are the FTS reactions
1. CO + 2H2 - CH2 - + H2O
2. CO + 2H2 H2 + CO2 (Water-Gas Shift)
3. 2CO + H2 - CH2 - + CO2 (net overall FTS)

Specific FTS products are synthesized according to the following reactions.

4. CO + 3H2 CH4 + H2O (Methanation)

5. nCO + (2n+1)H2 CnH2n+2 (Paraffins)
6. nCO + 2nH2 C6H2n + nH2O (Olefins)
7. nCO + 2nH2 CnH2n+1OH + (n-1)H2O (Alcohols)
8. 2CO C* + CO2

0
Depending on the desired products, either high (300-350 C) or low (200-2400C)
temperatures can be used in FT synthesis. Group VIII transition metal oxides are generally
regarded as good CO hydrogenation catalysts. The earliest catalysts used for FTS were Fe
and Co. Relative activity of these metals for FTS in decreasing order of activity;
Ru > Fe > Ni > Co > Rh > Pd > Pt (51)

2.5.4 Methanol to Olefins Technology

Discovered by Mobil Oil in 1977, the Methanol to Hydrocarbon process was used to convert
methanol to products including olefins and gasoline. Methanol derived from coal or natural
gas can be converted to olefins such as ethylene and propylene by Methanol to Olefins
(33)
(MTO) process. The conversion of methanol involves a complex network of chemical
reactions that are catalyzed by acidic zeolites named as SAPO-34 that are based on silicon,
aluminium, phosphate and oxygen. Methanol to olefins process basically yields the two
product streams of propylene and ethylene with another stream of heavier olefins in the range
(52)
of C4 – C6. These heavier olefins in the third stream are cracked into ethylene and
propylene by Olefine Cracking Process (OCP). As a result, integration of these two processes
of MTO and OCP was taken into consideration during commercialization of this novel
(53)
technology. As the demand for petroleum for energy purposes keep on increasing, the

Page | 27
petroleum supply would be limited and the prices would stay high. But it is possible to
produce light olefins at a very reasonable cost, by the integration of MTO and OCP.

2.5.5 Oxidative Coupling of Methane

During the process of Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM), oxygen and methane is reacted
on a catalyst exothermally to produce ethane and ethylene and small amount of higher
hydrocarbons. Even the direct conversion of methane to ethylene would give enormous
economic benefits; it has been a scientific challenge for about 30 years as producing a
commercial OCM catalyst was a not successful. (54)

Such an OCM catalyst should have a high selectivity to C2 products (ethane and ethylene) at a
high methane conversion rate. On the other hand, its catalytic properties should withstand a
high temperature of 650 – 800 oC at which the strong C – H bonds in methane are activated to
(55)
initiate the reaction. However, Siluria Technologies Inc., a US natural gas technology
company, has been able to produce a potential commercially viable OCM catalyst and
currently operate two pilot scale plants that produce ethylene from methane. It would take
another few years until this process is commercialized. (23)

2.6 Process Selection

When all above factors are considered, it can be concluded that the best option for the
production of ethylene will be using LNG as raw material and follow steam cracking at the
cracking, the major step of the process.

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CHAPTER 03 – ETHYLENE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

As justified in the section 2, it is selected to use steam cracking of natural gas as the ethylene
most suitable manufacturing process. The selected raw material source is ‗Qatari Gas‘, from
Qatar and it will be brought to Sri Lanka in liquefied form in cryogenic tankers. Liquefied
natural gas (LNG) basically consists of methane, ethane and few other hydrocarbon
substances and non-hydrocarbon impurities. The LNG supplier generally conducts treating
processes on LNG to purify it so that it contains a very small content of impurities at the
point of purchase. This liquefied natural gas will be processed into ethylene using following
operations related to steam cracking process.

1. Primary de-methanizer – As given in the section 2, LNG large proportion of LNG

consists of methane. This methane will be separated from LNG using cryogenic
distillation and the top product of the column containing methane will be used to
generate heat and power for the production facility. The bottom product of the column
will be sent to the next stage of the process.
2. Primary de-ethanizer – Ethane should be separated out from LNG for production
process by cryogenic distillation in the primary de-ethanizer. This ethane rich stream
will be then sent to the steam cracker.
3. Steam Cracker – The separated out ethane will be fed into the cracking furnace, the
heart of this manufacturing process and exposed to extreme heat for a very short time
of around 0.1 seconds. The ethane molecules split into other hydrocarbons at this
temperature. Typically the conditions for the steam cracking include high
temperatures of 750 – 900oC, short residence times, low hydrocarbon concentrations,
rapid quenching or cooling to minimize unnecessary secondary reactions.
4. Transfer Line Exchanger – The product gases from the cracker would be at a
temperature around 800oC and it will be rapidly quenched using the TLE to a
temperature of around 350oC. This step is essential to prevent the unnecessary
secondary reactions and high pressure superheated steam will be generated from the
recovered heat.
5. Cooler – A secondary heat exchanger will be used to further reduce the temperature of
the product gas stream down to 200oC.
6. Gas Compressor – The gas stream has to be liquefied in order to separate out ethylene
from the mixture of hydrocarbons. The cracked gas from the tower will passed to a

Page | 29
 series of centrifugal compressors to increase the pressure up to 2000 kPa. When the
gas is compressed the temperature will be increased and as a result, heat exchangers
must be used to cool the gas between compression stages.
7. Pre-scrubber – LNG typically contains trace amounts of sulfur compounds and this
sulfur will produce basically hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Other than that, there will be
carbon dioxide (CO2) produced and these are considered as impurity which should be
removed from the product gas stream. The load of alkaline solution would be high if a
NaOH scrubber is used alone. Therefore, the gas stream will go through a pre-
scrubber which uses a regenerative alkanolamine solution that will readily absorb H2S
from the gas stream.
8. NaOH Wash Tower – Then CO2 and the remaining H2S will be removed from the gas
stream in the NaOH tower. The CO2 will turn into Na2CO3 and dissolve in the
aqueous solution.
9. Chiller Train – The pressurized gas stream is then sent through a series of chillers
until water in it is liquefied.
10. Flash Drum – The water in the process stream is separated using a flash drum. All the
water and a very little amount of hydrocarbons go into the liquid stream. Rest of the
hydrocarbons will be recovered at the top of the flash drum.
11. Secondary de-methanizer – Hydrogen and methane are separated out from the process
stream cryogenic distillation column and they would be used as fuel for the furnace.
Remaining low volatile hydrocarbons will leave the column at the bottom.
12. Secondary de-ethylenizer – Ethylene is now separated from the heavier compounds
using a cryogenic distillation column.
13. Acetylene Converter – Acetylene is considered to be a poison for polymerization
processes thus, it will converted to ethylene in an acetylene converter by
hydrogenation. During this process, the gas mixture is sent through reactors that are
filled with catalyst, which is packed loosely enough for the cracked gas to flow
through from top to bottom. This process involves temperatures of 60 – 90 oC and
then the gas is cooled to temperature around -100 oC before entering the gas
separation process.
14. Ethylene Fractionator – The product stream from the acetylene convertor now
contains only ethane, ethylene and propane. Ethylene will be separated from this
stream using another cryogenic distillation column where the top product will be
given ethylene with 99.98 w/w% purity.
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3.1 Process Flow Sheet

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CHAPTER 04 – PLANT SITING AND LAYOUT

4.1 Plant Location

As it is decided to use LNG as raw material there should be facilities of proper material
handling like shipping facilities, storage facilities. In addition there should be enough space
and it should be a low residential area as plants create some noise and emissions. Also there
should be a proper way of handling finished goods whether it is for in house usage or for
exportation of abundant product. With all these considerations choosing Colombo port area
will not be effective as though the shipping facilities are available there is not enough land to
install the plant and it is a high residential area. This leads towards choosing Hambantota to
be the location of the plant with the proposed Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in new
Hambantota port premises as this provides enough land for the plant installation.

4.2 Land

The proposed and signed agreement for new EPZ in Hambantota covers an area of 2,717
acres (1100 hectares) and current port premises has an area of 140 hectares (345.8 acres) for
(56)
investments This shows a greater potential to acquire land from Hambantota port
premises. The land that is allocated for the EPZ occupies land from sea side which makes it
possible of choosing a location near shore. This eliminates difficulties of unloading LNG
using pipelines by hiring a terminal or by installing a jetty at port premises.

4.3 Population Density (53)

The selected site for the plant is the EPZ located in Hambantota district secretariat division of
Hambantota district. The EPZ of Hambantota Greater Development Plan is located west to
the Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Harbor and south west to the Hambantota City. Though
it can be expected that there could be a concentration of population would occur in the city
area, still the total population in Hambantota district secretariat division is 55,249 distributed
(54)
in an area of 322 km2. The density of 172 persons per square kilometer is still a very
small value when the Sri Lanka‘s overall population distribution is considered. As a result,
Hambantota EPZ is an ideal location for the establishment of a petrochemical plant as it
allows for the future expansion of the plant. On the other hand, the effect on community will
be minimal in the event of an incident, as this area is isolated from the major city in the area.

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 Figure 4.1: Population Density - Hambantota District
4.4 Wind Pattern

The wind flow in Hambantota area is affected by the two monsoons to a great extent rather
than the sea breeze. As a result the wind direction doesn‘t vary significantly between day and
night. The maximum and average velocity is reasonably greater during the peak monsoon
months of January and July. The wind direction during the December to February period is
from north-eastern direction and it shows a clear transition into its opposite direction, from
south-west during the remaining months with the beginning of the monsoon. This
phenomenon has a high significance as the wind flowing in one direction then has the ability
to carry away the hot gases from the flares or any gaseous chemical released in an emergency
situation without creating photochemical smog.

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Figure 4.2: The Cumulative of the wind speeds as broken up into eight points in the compass
for Hambantota for different months
4.5 Feasibility of Transporting Materials

The newly built Hambantota Ruhunu Magampura port is located at a hub of shipping routes
in Indian Ocean and is identified as a hub of marine silk route, indicating that transportation
of any product, raw material will not be a problem. Around 200 shipping vessels daily pass
this location of Hambantota port (57).

Figure 4.3: Shipping density for the global maritime transport system (58)

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Source: Shipping density data adapted from National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis, A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems.

This shows that Sri Lanka is located in a high shipping density sea area. Therefore the
transportation of raw material or product will not be a problem.

4.6 Selected Material Transporting mechanism

As LNG is imported from Qatar and part of the ethylene is planned to export to India
transportation of both LNG and ethylene will be done by LNG carriers and ethylene
transporting cargoes respectively. Ships will only reach to a certain distance from the shore
and it is decided to install a pumping station in sea near to shore in order to unload LNG and
to load ethylene to cargo tankers. From there onwards a set of cryogenic pipe lines will be
installed under the sea so that it is possible to transfer Natural gas and ethylene at liquid state
between storage facilities from plant premises and pumping station. The same set of pipe
lines will be used for the transportation of both LNG and ethylene using pumps to apply
necessary pressure. Further the flow characteristics will be maintained such that flow is a
plug flow allowing the transportation of both LNG and ethylene. A Nitrogen flow will be sent
before whenever the medium is changed from LNG to ethylene or wise versa.

4.7 Plant Layout

There are some critical factors and principles that should be followed when designing a plant
layout. These will maximize both safety and economic aspects of the plant as a better lay out
reduces costs and accidents or near misses to a maximum possible level.

As the site has already selected the layout addresses to the locating of plant facilities from
raw material storage to finished good storage and administration facilities for whole system.
The layout is basically designed using the ―Flow principle‖ which will minimize most of the
vulnerable pipe works and unnecessary exposure to hazards of plant personnel.

Hence the plant premises will be divided into four major zones according to the risk scores
calculated for each and every operation in the plant premises. The four zones and allocated
areas for those zones will be as follows.

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 Table 4.1: Safety Zones and Processing Areas of the Plant
Safety Zone Risk Group Allocated areas
Zone 01 High risk Storage areas
Distillation areas
Steam cracker
Compressors
Zone 02 Risk Linear Transfer Exchanger
Scrubbers
Zone 03 Low Risk Workshop
Environment closer to risky
areas
Zone 04 No Risk/Normal Administration building

Zone 01 areas will be isolated and special safety measures will be taken as indicated in the
previous chapter and other zones will also be secured accordingly. The plant layout will be
designed in such a manner that risky process steps and equipment are installed away from the
populated areas in a maximum distance possible while administration building will be located
to the land side. As a general principle, a minimum distance of 250 meters was maintained
from the existing establishments while generating the layout for safety of the general public
at an extreme hazard situation.

It is decided that raw materials and finished product will be transported via a pumping station
installed off shore. Thus it is mandatory to locate storage facilities closer to shore in a
minimum distance possible where both raw material and finished good storage facilities will
be located near to each other as both LNG and ethylene is to be pumped using same piping
network until pumping station. (63)

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Figure 4.4: Proposed Site for Ethylene Production Facility

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Figure 4.5: Plant Layout Page | 38
CHAPTER 05 – ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH AND SAFETY

5.1 Environmental Impact

5.1.1 Air Pollution

Since, natural gas will be used as the raw material for manufacturing ethylene, the emissions
and environmental impact related to natural gas extraction, pre-processing and transport
should be taken into account. Natural gas burning for energy generation for processing of
natural gas and ocean-based transportation of LNG in ships powered by bunker-fuel make
contribution to a great extent for emissions of acidification dominated by SOx and NOx
emissions.

In the selected process of ethylene production, dust and solid waste emissions which affect
the environment will be in a minimum level. But, the plant include boilers, reactors,
distillation columns and other treatment columns where the product is a low molecular
weight hydrocarbon and feedstock being a mixture of volatile hydrocarbons, number of
various gaseous including volatile organic compounds (VOC‘s) will emit from the plant
premises.

Further, as the cracking of ethane consumes huge amount of energy generated by combustion
of natural gas emission of CO2 can be expected to be at a considerable level. Since a high
temperature combustion process open to atmosphere is involved in this process, NOx also
need to be critically taken into account. The cumulative greenhouse gas emissions for the
steam cracking of ethane amount to 840 kg CO2/tone of ethylene where it is 1135 kg/t for
steam cracking of naphtha.

It is stated that the overall environmental impact of ethylene production is similar for
naphtha, ethane and corn-ethanol feedstock. However, the natural gas based energy
generation is found to be the biggest contributor being approximately 85% of the overall
environmental impact. The environmental impact per 1000MJ of energy from natural gas as
predicted by the software GaBi 4.4® is given in the Table 4.1. (59)

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 Table 5.1: Environmental impact per 1000 MJ of energy from natural gas
Category Predicted impacts Predicted impacts of
from natural gas energy generation at
extraction plant
Acidification (mol H+ equivalent (eq.) 0.98 5.17
Eco-toxicity air (kg 2,4-dichlorophenoxyace eq.) 0.0031 9.9 (10-3)
Eco-toxicity-surface soil (kg benzene eq.) - -
Eco-toxicity water (kg 2,4-dichlorophenoxyace 5.4 (10-4) 1.85 (10-4)
eq.)
Eutrophication (kg N-eq.) 2.14 (10-3) 2.83 (10-3)
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (kg CO2-eq.) 7.6 67.26
Human health cancer-air (kg benzene eq.) 0.000681 0.0038
Human health cancer-GSS (kg benzene eq.) - -
Human health cancer water (kg benzene eq.) 0.0151 0.008
Human health cancer air point (kg benzene eq.) 0.00539 0.0420
Human health non-cancer air (kg toluene eq.) 0.805 8.37
Human health non-cancer GSS (kg toluene eq.) - 0.034
Human health non-cancer water (kg toluene eq.) 105.52 57.4
Ozone depletion potential (kg CFC-11 eq.) 1.18 (10-11) 6.29 (10-3)
Smog air (kg NOx eq.) 4.49 (10-6) 9.5 (10-5)
eq. equivalent

The estimations made by the software GaBi 4.4® for an ethylene plant with production
capacity of 400,000 Mt/y is given in the Table 4.2. Since the plant that is being designed for
this project has a capacity of 100,000 Mt/y, it can be simply assumed that the emissions will
be approximately 4 times less than the GaBi estimation.

Table 5.2: Emissions to environment from a 400,000 MTY ethylene plant (59)
Category Impact (millions)
Acidification (mol H+ equivalent (eq.)) 376
Eco-toxicity air (kg 2,4-dichlorophenoxyace eq.) 0.07
Eco-toxicity-surface soil (kg benzene eq.) 0
Eco-toxicity water (kg 2,4-dichlorophenoxyace eq.) 78
Eutrophication (kg N-eq.) 0

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Greenhouse gas emissions (kg CO2-eq.) 167
Human health cancer-air (kg benzene eq.) 0.11
Human health cancer-surface soil (kg benzene eq.) 0
Human health cancer water (kg benzene eq.) 0.26
Human health cancer air point source (kg benzene eq.) 1.8
Human health non-cancer air (kg toluene eq.) 20
Human health non-cancer surface soil (kg toluene eq.) 0
Human health non-cancer water (kg toluene eq.) 5,300
Ozone depletion potential (kg CFC-11 eq.) 0
Smog air (kg NOx eq.) 1.4 (10-4)

The sources of air pollution of a petrochemical plant is mainly due to the emissions of
different products, intermediates and effluent gases can be released from heaters and boilers,
valves, flanges, pumps and compressors, storage and transfer of products and intermediates,
wastewater handling and emergency vents and flares. The gaseous emissions from an
ethylene plant include the following.
 Periodic decoking of cracking furnaces to remove carbon build-up on the radiant
coils. Decoking produces significant particulate emissions and carbon monoxide
 Flare gas systems to allow safe disposal of any hydrocarbons or hydrogen that cannot
be recovered in the process (i.e., during unplanned shutdowns and during start-ups).
Crackers typically have at least one elevated flare as well as some ground flares
 VOC emissions from pressure relief devices, venting of offspecification materials or
depressurizing and purging of equipment for maintenance. Crack gas compressor and
refrigeration compressor outages are potential sources ofshort-term, high rate VOC
emissions. During normal operation, VOC emissions from the cracking process are
usually reduced because they are recycled, used as fuel or routed to associated
processes in an integrated site. Elevated VOC emissions from ethylene plants are
intermittent, and may occur during plant start-up and shutdown, process upsets, and
emergencies

As per the ambient air quality standards set by Central Environmental Authority, Sri Lanka,
the emission levels of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Ozone (O3) and
Carbon Monoxide (CO) are regulated. Necessary action need to be taken to maintain these

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emissions at a minimal level. (60) Since sulfur in the LNG will be recovered from the process
(61)
stream, sulfur emissions will be negligible. The set of internationally recognized air
emission standards set by International Finance Corporation, A World Bank Group for large
volume petroleum based organic chemical manufacturing are shown in Table 4.3.

Table 5.3: Air Emissions Guidelines a (38)

Pollutant Unit Guideline Value

3
Particulate Matter (PM) mg/Nm 20
Nitrogen Oxides mg/Nm3 300
Hydrogen Chloride mg/Nm3 10
Sulfur Oxides mg/Nm3 100
Benzene mg/Nm3 5
1,2-Dichloroethane mg/Nm3 5
Vinyl Chloride (VCM) mg/Nm3 5
Acrylonitile mg/Nm3 0.5 (incineration)
2 (scrubbing)
Ammonia mg/Nm3 15
VOCs mg/Nm3 20
Heavy Metals (total) mg/Nm3 1.5
Mercury and Compounds mg/Nm3 0.2
Formaldehyde mg/m3 0.15
3
Ethylene mg/Nm 150
Ethylene Oxide mg/m3 2
Hydrogen Cyanide mg/m3 2
Hydrogen Sulfide mg/m3 5
Nitrobenzene mg/m3 5
Organic Sulfide and Mercaptans mg/m3 2
Phenols, Cresols and Xylols (as Phenol) mg/m3 10
Caprolactam mg/m3 0.1
Dioxins/Furans ng TEQ/Nm3 0.1
a. Dry, 273K (0oC), 101.3 kPa (1 atm), 6% O2 for solid fuels; 3% O2 for liquid and gaseous fuels

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The air pollutant preventive and control methods include;
 Implementing advanced multi-variable control and on-line optimization, incorporating
on-line analyzers, performance controls, and constraint controls;
 Recycling and/or re-using hydrocarbon waste streams for heat and steam generation;
 Minimizing the coke formation through process optimization;
 Use of cyclones or wet scrubbing systems to abate particulate emissions;
 Implementing process control, visual inspection of the emission point, and close
supervision of the process parameters (e.g., temperatures) during the de-coking phase;
 Recycling the decoking effluent stream to the furnace firebox where sufficient
residence time permits total combustion of any coke particles;
 Flaring during startup should be avoided as much as possible (flareless startup);
 Minimizing flaring during operation;
 Collecting emissions from process vents and other point sources in a closed system
and routing to a suitable purge gas system for recovery into fuel gas or to flare;
 Adopting closed loop systems for sampling;
 Hydrogen sulfide generated in sour gas treatment should be burnt to sulfur dioxide or
converted to sulfur by Claus unit;
 Installing permanent gas monitors, video surveillance and equipment monitoring
(such as on-line vibration monitoring) to provide early detection and warning of
abnormal conditions; and
 Implementing regular inspection and instrument monitoring to detect leaks and
fugitive emissions to atmosphere (Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) programs).

5.1.2 Waste Water

The liquid effluents from lower olefins such as ethylene manufacturing plant include process
and cooling water, storm water and other specific discharges such as hydrotesting, washing
and cleaning operations like hydroblasting, mainly during facility startup and turnaround
which are potentially contaminated with VOCs, sulfur compounds, heavy metals and
particulate matter, etc. Moreover, there will be general use water and sewage generated from
the facility. According to International Finance Corporation Environment, Health and Safety
guidelines, the effluents from steam crackers and recommended prevention and control
methods for respective waste stream are as follows.

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 Steam flow purges (typically 10% of the total dilution steam flow used to prevent
contaminant build-up) should be neutralized by pH adjustment and treated via an
oil/water separator and air-flotation before discharge to the facility‘s wastewater
treatment system
o Spent caustic solution, if not reused for its sodium sulfide content or for cresol
recovery, should be treated using a combination of the following steps
o Solvent washing or liquid-liquid extraction for polymers and polymer
precursors;
o Liquid-liquid settler and/or coalescer for removing and recycling the free
liquid gasoline phase to the process;
o Stripping with steam or methane for hydrocarbon removal;
o Neutralization with a strong acid (which results in a H2S / CO2 gas stream that
is combusted in a sour gas flare or incinerator);
o Neutralization with acid gas or flue gas (which will partition the phenols into a
buoyant oily phase for further treatment);
o Oxidation (wet air or catalytic wet air or ozone) to oxidize carbon and
sulfides/mercaptans before neutralization (to reduce or eliminate H2S
generation).
 Spent amine solution, used to remove hydrogen sulfide from heavy feedstock in order
to reduce the amount of caustic solution needed for final process gas treatment. The
used amine solution should be regenerated by steam stripping to remove hydrogen
sulfide. A portion of the amine wash is bled off to control the concentration of
accumulating salts; and
 A stream of C2 polymerization product known as ‗green oil‘ produced during
acetylene catalytic hydrogenation to ethylene and ethane, containing multi-ring
aromatics (e.g. anthracene, chrysene, carbazole). It should be recycled into the process
(e.g., into the primary fractionator for recovery as a component of fuel oil) or should
be burnt for heat recovery.
 Hydrostatic testing (hydro-test) of equipment and pipelines involves pressure testing
with water (generally filtered raw water), to verify system integrity and to detect
possible leaks. Chemical additives (e.g., a corrosion inhibitor, an oxygen scavenger,
and a dye) are often added. In managing hydrotest waters, the following pollution
prevention and control measures should be implemented:

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 o Using the same water for multiple tests;
o Reducing the need for corrosion inhibitors and other chemicals by minimizing
the time that test water remains in the equipment or pipeline;
o If chemical use is necessary, selecting the least hazardous alternative with
regards to toxicity, biodegradability, bioavailability, and bioaccumulation
potential. If discharge of hydrotest waters to the sea or to surface water is the
only feasible alternative for disposal, a hydrotest water disposal plan should be
prepared that considers points of discharge, rate of discharge, chemical use
and dispersion, environmental risk, and required monitoring. Hydrotest water
disposal into shallow coastal waters should be avoided.

All these waste streams should be treated down to the levels mentioned in the IFC guidelines
given in the Table 4.4. This will be done by the centralized waste water treatment plant of
EPZ, Hambantota. However, there is a certain limit for the conatminants in waste water that
is accepted by the waste water treatment plant of EPZ, Hambantota. Thus, the plant should
possess in house waste water treatment plant before releasing the waste streams to EPZ
wastewater treatment plant.

Table 5.4: Effluents Guidelines (38)

Pollutant Unit Guideline Value

Ph S.U. 6–9
o
Temperature increase C =3
BODs mg/l 25
COD mg/l 150
Total Nitrogen mg/l 10
Total Phosphorous mg/l 2
Sulfide mg/l 1
Oil and Grease mg/l 10
TSS mg/l 30
Cadmium mg/l 0.1
Chromium (total) mg/l 0.5
Chromium (hexavalant) mg/l 0.1
Copper mg/l 0.5
Zinc mg/l 2

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Lead mg/l 0.5
Nickel mg/l 0.5
Mercury mg/l 0.01
Phenol mg/l 0.5
Benzene mg/l 0.05
Vinyl Chloride (VCM) mg/l 0.05
1,2-Dichloroethane (EDC) mg/l 1
Adsorbable Organic Halogens (AOX) mg/l 1
Toxicity Determined on a case specific basis

However, not all the parameters that are indicated in these figures are applicable for
production of ethylene as these are the guidelines practiced for any large volume petroleum
based organic chemical manufacturing industry. The industrial bench marks that are
applicable for the production of ethylene can be listed down as in Table 5.5.

Table 5.5: Emissions, effluents waste/co-products generation for lower olefins (38)
Parameter Unit Industry Benchmark
Alkenes t/y 2500
CO, NOx t/y 200
SOx t/y 600
VOC kg/t ethylene 0.6 – 10
Waste Water Flow m3/h 15
Total hydroc. Losses % feed/kg/t ethylene 0.3 – 0.5 / 5 – 15
Source: EIPPCB BREF (2003)

5.1.3 Solid Wastes

Steam cracking process generates a very small quantity of solid waste as most of the product
waste streams are in the gas phase. However, the solid wastes emitted from an ethylene plant
include both non-hazardous and hazardous materials. Any garbage or refuse such as domestic
trash, garbage, inert construction/demolition materials, metal scrap, empty containers except
that are previously used to store hazardous material and industrial waste such as boiler slag
are considered as non-hazard solid wastes.

The hazardous materials that have physical, chemical characteristics that can pose a danger to
health and the environment if, improperly managed will be contained in the wastes such as
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organic sludge from wastewater treatment plant, spent catalyst, spent desiccants and coke.
Each waste material should be treated on a case by case basis and may be recycled, reclaimed
or re-used after treatment. On the other hand, they can be incinerated or landfilled.(60) The
spent catalyst from the acetylene converter contains Palladium and it can be recycled back to
produce new catalysts or high purity products. This will be done with the association of an
outsourced environmental waste management company without releasing toxic materials to
soil, air and water.

5.2 Personal Safety

Safety has been a key factor for the existence of chemical processing industries in global
scenario throughout the history. Historical facts show that the influences of industries on
natural environment and health of general public are enormous and irreversible. As
International Labor Organization states, 2.3 million work related deaths are reported each
year all over the world. Being an ethylene production facility which handles highly hazardous
materials in large quantities, a special concern should be paid over the workplace safety is
vital as a small mistake may lead to a catastrophic disaster. Under this section, the types of
hazards that would pose threat to the employees, general public and the company are taken
into consideration.

5.2.1 Heat

The proposed ethylene production process involves high temperature operations such as a
furnace which burns gas fuel at 1100oC and high pressure superheated steam generation at
400oC. Direct exposure to extremely hot gases, superheated steam and hot surfaces of these
units would cause fatal injuries causing death. Moreover, due to the exposure of cracking
furnace and other heat utilities such as boilers, non-ionizing thermal radiation hazards can be
happen. This non-ionizing radiation may lead injuries such as Skin irritation and rashes,
dehydration, rising of body core temperature.

5.2.2 Noise

The noise is typically generated from the operations including large size rotating machines
such as compressors and turbines, pumps, electric motors, air coolers, flares and from
emergency depressurization. Noise impacts from the ethylene plant operation should not

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exceed the levels given in the Table 5.6 or result in a maximum increase in background levels
of 3 dB at the nearest receptor location off-site.

Table 5.6: Noise Level Guidelines*

One Hour Lavg (dBA)
Receptor Daytime 0700 - 2200 Nighttime 2200 – 0700
Residential, Institutional, Educational** 55 45
Industrial, Commercial 70 70
*Guidelines values are for noise levels measured out of doors. Source: Guidelines for Community Noise, WHO, 1999.

**For acceptable indoor noise levels for residential, institutional, and educational settings refer to WHO (1999).

Highly intrusive noises such as air-craft flyover to Matthala international airport or passing
trains in the railway line that is proposed to extend up to Kataragama will not be included
when establishing the background noise levels.

Noise prevention and control methods should be applied where predicted noise impacts from
the operations exceed the applicable noise level at the most sensitive point of reception. The
most effective means of controlling noise from stationary sources is the application of noise
control method at the point of source. Noise reduction options that should be implemented in
this plant include;
 Selecting equipment with lower sound power levels
 Installing silencers for fans used in cooling towers, ventilation, etc.
 Installing suitable mufflers on engine exhausts and compressor components.
 Installing acoustic enclosures for equipment casing that are radiating noise.
 Installing vibration isolation for mechanical equipment
 Locate noise sources to less sensitive areas to take advantage of distance and
shielding.
 Developing a mechanism to record and respond to complaints (62).

5.2.3 Vibration

These hazards will occur mostly in operation period near to the gas compressor in the plant.
Due to this vibration exposure may lead in to neck injuries, lower back damage, headaches
and shakiness after short time exposure. Severity of these hazards depends on following
factors,
 Amount of time exposure to sources of vibration

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  Amount of body exposure to sources of vibration
 Workers physical and health conditions
 Proper maintenance of gas compressors
 Lack of work safety practices.

The following measures can be taken in order to reduce vibration hazards from the machinery of
the production plant.
 Vibration surface or source gas compressors should be mechanically isolated
 Vibrating equipment should be maintained well to avoid excessive vibration
 If the vibration level is above harming vibration level equipment should be modified or
replaced
 Time spent working on a vibrating surface and amount of time vibrating tools are used
should be limited

5.2.4 Respiratory Hazards

The major chemical used in the process is liquefied natural gas which is fractionated into
different products throughout the process. Since most of these fractionated products are gases
under atmospheric conditions, among health effects of these substances, respiratory hazards
are the most significant. Other than that, there will be other chemicals used for the process
such as NaOH, alkanolamine, etc. The Table 5.7 illustrates a summary of the respiratory
hazards posed by the chemicals handled in the plant with considerable quantities.

Table 5.7: Respiratory Hazards and TWA values of substances used in the process
Chemical Respiratory Hazards Time Weighted
Average
Liquefied Nausea, headache, dizziness, vomiting, CO2 – 5000 ppm
Natural Gas suffocation through displacing O2, reduce O2 (OSHA)
delivery to body organs by CO contained in N- butane – 800 ppm
LNG (OSHA)
Pentane, Propane –
1000 ppm (OSHA)
Ethane and Suffocation, chronic effects like organ damage, 1000 ppm 8 hours
other lower aggravation of existing disorders associated with (ACGIH)
paraffinic target organs like heart and central nerve system

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substances
Nitrogen Suffocation due to depletion of O2 Oxygen depletion
Hydrogen Toxic, chronic effects like target organ damage 10 ppm 10 minutes
sulfide such as lungs and respiratory tracts (NIOSH)
1 ppm 8 hours
(ACGIH)
Carbon dioxide Asphyxiant 10% or above cause 30000 ppm 15 minutes
unconsciousness and death, chronic health (ACGIH)
effects like target organ damage in lungs 5000 ppm 8 hours
(OSHA)
Acetylene Acute and chronic effects on human health, 2500 ppm (NIOSH)
decomposition results in producing gases CO,
CO2, H2
Ethylene Simple asphyxia, chronic effects like damage to 200 ppm 8 hours
organs like lungs, muscle tissue and heart, over (ACGIH)
exposure will increase the severity of illness.
Methane Simple asphyxia, respiratory disorders can be 1000 ppm 8 hours
made worst by over exposure as a chronic effect. (ACGIH)
NaOH Inhalation of dust may cause respiratory 2 mg/m3 (NIOSH) (8
difficulties, longer exposure results in lung hours)
damage, unconsciousness or death, repeated
longer exposure causes target organ damage

Engineering and administrative controls should always be used first before looking for the
option of PPEs. Engineering controls are related to the modifications done in the design in
order to mitigate the hazard or to place a barrier between hazard and worker. Such
engineering controls applied in order to alleviate the hazards posed by above chemicals can
be listed as follows.
 Isolation of hazard – Identify and isolate the possible hazardous material and
equipment as much as possible by allocating zones for storage vessels, pipe lines that
are made inaccessible without authority The production facility should be clearly
divided into zones according to the level of hazards present in those areas and should
be included with relevant signage labels to guide employers. Relevant personal
protective equipments should be provided in each area for the usage of employees.

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  Exposure at production floor - All the equipment should be fabricated according to
the standards that would prevent any fault leakages of chemical. Since, enclosures
cannot be provided in a production facility like this where most of the equipment
reach above 25 meters in height which also indicates that normally releasing gaseous
compounds has no chance to contact with human by any exposure route.

Administrative controls must be considered for implementation whenever the engineering

controls are not feasible to be adopted. The administrative controls make no physical
changes to the existing equipment or process, but limit the time duration of daily
exposure of the employees for these substances. This involves, adjusting work tasks or
schedules, written operating procedures, work practices, safety and health rules for
employees, alarms, signs and warnings and an intense training program.
 Material Safety Data Sheets - Material safety data sheets list down all the hazards,
physical and chemical properties, handling of material, control measures to indicated
hazards of a certain element, chemical or chemical compound. For this reason it is
mandatory to make available MSDS of all chemicals used in the facility at the
production floor where any personnel involve with the process can review it. Also
MSDS of all chemicals should be obtained from the chemical supplier at the purchase
and it is supplier‘s duty to provide customer with adequate and accurate data. (62)
 Chemical register – A chemical register is a document in which all the details of
chemicals used in the production process are included. This should include a list of all
chemicals in production floor, chemical name, risk scores for each chemical, quantity
at the storage, storage location and material safety data sheet. The chemical register
should be regularly updated by responsible personnel at storage facilities and at
production facility. Further an inspection procedure should be carried out in order to
measure the effectiveness of documentation and document control (63).

5.2.5 Electrical Hazards

Electricity is one of major utilities in any kind of industry. In this plant also electricity is one
of the major utilities. But when the hazardous effect is considered, it is one of the main four
hazards causing injury or death. Since electricity is used throughout the plant and the only
difference from unit to unit is that the change of voltage and phase, hazardous effect cannot
be divided from unit to unit. Electricity can be directly or indirectly caused for several types
of hazards. Most common risks and causes of injury can be listed as follows.

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  Electricity could be the source of ignition for fire and explosions especially in a
potentially flammable or explosive environment.
 Electrical shocks by the contact with live parts which can cause deaths and injuries.
Normal electrical signals between brain and muscles will be interfered.
 Thermal burns and flame burns can happen from electric arc and the material catch on
fire from heating or ignition by electric current.
 Electric shock from ‗step and touch potentials. (64)

Ethylene production deals with extreme conditions like very high temperatures in cracker,
high pressures and also flammable substances. Therefore, well maintenance and use of
electricity supply is mandatory especially in distillation column, quenching towers and
storages because a small unexpected spark may lead to a catastrophic disaster. Further the
rapid breakdowns of electricity supply may damage the equipment and badly effects on the
process and the product. (65) The effects of electric current human are different depending on
the strength and the duration of exposure. These effects are listed down in the Table 4.8.

Table 5.8: Effect of current on human body (66)

Current (mill amperes) Reaction

1 Perception level. Just a tingle.
5 Slight shock felt; not painful but disturbing.
Average individual can let go. However, strong involuntary
reactions to shocks in this range can lead to injuries.
6-25 Women Painful shock, muscular control is lost.
9-30 Men This is called the freezing current or "let-go" range.
50-150 Extreme pain, respiratory arrest, severe muscular contractions.
Individual cannot let go. Death is possible.
1000-4300 Ventricular fibrillation. (The rhythmic pumping action of the heart
ceases.) Muscular contraction and nerve damage occur. Death is
most likely.
10,000 Cardiac arrest, severe burns and probable death.

In order to prevent these hazards, a well-structured plan is required for electrical installations
and maintenance. When designing the installation system, following things should be taken
into account for electrical safety approaches.

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 Well covered underground system can be used for high voltage supplies and those
should be included in drawings. When in a case of excavating, Responsible person
should be there with proper understanding about underground electrical supply
system.
 Proper grounding system and lightning protection system mainly for distillation
columns should be maintained.
 In this plant since explosive materials are handling specially in distillation columns,
quenching tower, compresses and also in storages it is important to ensure that no
sparking conditions throughout those units specially by having proper joints when
wires are joining and properly covering them.
 Open electric lines should not be located in material handling places where trucks and
trippers, cranes, forklift trucks etc. are used.
 Circuit protection devices should be properly designed in a way that it automatically
shut off or limit the current flow in an event of overload, ground fault or short circuit
in the wiring system.
 If any equipment is operating at 50V or more, live parts of that equipment should be
covered to avoid accidental contact.
 Properly insulated wires and cables which the insulations are resistant to flame and
withstand for higher temperatures should be used.
 Proper cable trays should be used for electrical cables which allow for future
modifications even. If they are overloaded, due to the high weight failures may occur
in tray, Connecting points or supports. It may ultimately lead to electrical shocks and
arc flash. Other than this excessive heat build can be happen when overloading is
there (67).
 If and only if, the electrical hazard cannot be mitigated with engineering controls, the
next alternative, Personal Protective Equipment should be used. Electrical workers
should remove current conducting apparel like watchers, rings and chains and wear
electric shock resistant footwear and also they have to wear CSA approved class E
hard hat or equivalent. Other than those, safety glasses with side shields and under
and outer clothing with fire resistant properties should be worn. Warning signs must
be posted at the entrances to the electric rooms and similarly guarded areas. As a
regulation, only the authorized people should be used for electrical works especially

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 with high voltages. Other than these, a proper understanding and electrical safety
training should be provided for workers.

Maintenance of all of these approaches simultaneously, will eliminate electrical hazards from
the factory floor (68).

5.2.6 Physical Hazards

(69)
Physical hazards are factors within the environment which can be harm to the workers.
Physical hazards include causes of injuries for the workers such as machineries and tools,
physical energy such as noise, vibration, radiation, extremes in temperature. (70) Among these
hazards, immediate injuries such as falling and slipping and delayed injuries such as gradual
loss of hearing, burns, hypothermia, and heat stroke, skin rash and blistering from the
exposure to unseen physical hazards such as uncontrolled noise or heat are significant.
Generally, the employees face physical injuries such as Bruises, sprains, fractures,
concussions and lacerations basically due to wrong workplace postures, getting caught up in
moving machinery, etc.

5.2.6.1 Slip and Fall Hazards

This kind of hazard can be happen any kind of component mentioned above, mostly in the
period of installation and maintenance. It is estimated approximately 10% of workplace
injuries accounted for falls and slips. The seriousness of falls is often underestimated. It may
lead to not only serious injuries but also to death. Causes for such incidents can be listed as
follows.
 Wet floor and uncleaned floor exposure without any kind of protective arrangement or
warning symbols
 Poor slip resistance material used for floor works
 Exposure of opening without guarding such as rails and handrails
 Neglect to use handrails while working near to openings
 Unavailable or Neglect to wear the protective equipment such as proper foot wear,
helmets

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Measures that can be taken in order to reduce fall and slip hazards are as follows (71)
 The floor of every workplace should be maintained in a clean and dry condition.
 If wet processes are used, drainage should be maintained and false floors, platforms,
mats, or other dry standing places should be provided.
 floor opening, ramp, platform, or runway should be guarded by standard railings
 Every stairway opening and ladder way floor opening should be guarded by standard
stair railings and handrails
 Every manhole floor opening should be guarded by a standard manhole cover. If the
cover is not in place, the manhole opening should be constantly attended by someone
or should be protected by removable standard railings.
 Work platforms should be capable of carrying the design load under varying
circumstances depending upon the conditions of use.

5.2.6.2 Physical Hazards Due to Tools and Machineries

During the installment period and maintenance period huge number of machineries and tools
will be in use this may lead to present hazards for workers such as rotting shafts may grip
clothing, scratch the skin and force the hand or body into dangerous positions, movement of
straight continuous line may cause the person stuck in between moving and stationary parts.
Main causes for this kind of machinery hazards are such as neglect or lack of awareness of
working procedures, lack of training, proper guarding tools or warnings symbols may not be
attached.

The following preventive measures should be taken in order to mitigate physical hazards due
to tools and machinery (72)
 Standard guarding device which prevents the operator from having any part of his
body in the danger zone during the operating cycle should be given for operation of
machine
 Machines designed for a fixed location should be securely anchored to prevent
moving.
 Special hand tools for placing and removing material should be permit after
supplement protection for operator
 Machine performance and condition should be appraised regularly.
 When the tool is withdrawn from the work, the guard should be instantly returned to
covering position.
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  Avoid wearing jewelry such as rings, wrist watches, necklaces that can caught up in
the machineries when working in the plant.
 Always wear coveralls and ladies should tie up their hair short when entering the
production facility
 Use of proper tools whenever dealing with the machineries

Other than above specific measure taken to alleviate particular hazards, use personnel
protective equipment when dealing with machineries especially during installation, operation
(73)
and maintenance can reduce physical hazards to a great extent. Typically, the following
points should be addressed in a PPE program implemented in the production facility.
 Workplace hazard assessment should be done to ensure proper supplementation of
personal protective equipment
 All personal protective equipment shall be of safe design and construction for the
work to be performed.
 Workers should be demonstrated and trained about PPE necessity, how to use and
maintaining the PPE before allowed to perform work requiring the use of PPE.
 workers should wear a protective helmet when working in areas where there is a
potential for injury to the head from falling objects
 workers should use protective footwear when working in areas where there is a
danger of foot injuries due to falling or rolling objects, or objects piercing the sole,
and where such worker's feet are exposed to electrical hazards
 Workers should use appropriate hand protection when hands are exposed to hazards
such as those from skin absorption of harmful substances, severe cuts or lacerations,
severe abrasions, punctures, chemical burns, thermal burns, and harmful temperature
extremes.

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5.3 Material Handling and Storage

The major materials that require storage and transportation would be natural gas, ethylene
and methane if necessary.

5.3.1 Natural gas storage

Natural gas can be stored in LNG storage tank which is a specialized type of storage tank
used for the storage of Liquefied Natural Gas in liquid phase. LNG storage tanks can be
found in ground, above ground or in LNG carriers. The main feature of LNG Storage tanks is
the ability to store LNG at the very low temperature of -162 °C (-260 °F) to keep LNG in
Liquid phase. The temperature within tank can be maintained by auto refrigeration system.
The auto refrigeration system kept the pressure in constant by allowing the boil off gas to
escape from the tank in order to maintain lower temperature. If boil off gas are not released,
the pressure and temperature within the tank
will continue to rise. LNG storage tanks
commonly full containment tanks and it
usually have double containers, where the
inner contains LNG and the outer container
contains insulation materials. A typically
LNG storage tank dimensions are roughly 55
m (180 ft.) high and 75 m (250 ft.) in
diameter (=250,000 m³ LNG can be stored)
(74)
Figure 5.1: LNG Carrier and Storage Tanks

5.3.2 Transportation of Liquefied Natural Gas

Natural gas can be transported using different methods.

 Using LNG carriers – The volume of LNG is much lesser than that of natural gas. The
condensed natural gas is loaded to double hulled ships in order to transport natural gas
to the desired port. The double hulls are used as a safety measurement as well as a
method of insulation. Once this LNG reaches the desired port, the liquid is unloaded
to perfectly insulated storage tanks that are designed for storage of LNG (75)
 Using pipe lines - This is possible when Natural gas is at its gaseous phase. There are
various pipeline types as gathering system, interstate system and distribution system.
Gathering system pipelines are used to collect natural gas from drilling location to

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 processing plant. The interstate piping system transport natural gas from processing
plant to high natural gas demand areas. Natural gas is transported under a high
pressure that varies between 200 – 1500 psi. The diameter of most common pipe lines
vary from 24 – 36 inches and these are constructed of carbon steel with a high
strength to meet with engineering standards. (E.g. American Petroleum Institute) (76)

5.3.3 Ethylene storage

There are two basic types of vessels used to store ethylene (21)
 Pressurized or cylindrical (bullet tanks) – In this kind of tanks smaller capacities and
liquid ethylene can be stored in pressurized vessels (cylinders or spheres)
 Flat bottom storage tanks – It is the common way to store liquid ethylene is in flat
bottom insulated tanks at atmospheric pressure (temperature is -150°F).

These tanks should be constructed according to ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code
Section VIII. A suitable foundation is essential for a tank design. In that case foundations can
be constructed from concrete or steel and are designed to transmit all loads to the earth. When
the support is constructed from steel, following things have to be considered
 It should be protected from fire exposure.
 It should also have the same impact properties at low temperatures as the pressurized
portion of the vessel.
 It must be electrically grounded to prevent the accumulation of static electrical
discharges, which could result in a fire.

It is necessary to consider individual features and conditions when selecting an impoundment

concept. The method chosen depends on topography, the surrounding property and type of
adjacent buildings and their uses, exposure to the public at work or at home, and local
jurisdictional requirements.

Flat bottom tank foundations in low temperature service present an additional issue. Unless
the foundation is heated, eventually a large quantity of soil will reach temperatures below
freezing. Moisture in the soil will freeze and some ―heaving‖ could occur. To avoid
heaving, Soil temperature should be maintained above 32° F. Single wall tanks or double
wall tanks are suitable for storage. Insulation for single wall tanks is made on the outside of
the tank and covered with some type of weather barrier. In double wall tanks, noncombustible
insulating material is in between the two walls.

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5.3.4 Transportation of Ethylene

There are several modes of transportation are available for ethylene as given below. However
when the transportation is done by truck or rail, it is highly regulated as a hazardous material.
 Transporting by Pipeline - Followings are the major parameters which involve in
pipeline system (77)
 Required throughput (volume per unit time)
 Origin and destination points
 Product properties such as viscosity and specific gravity
 Topography of pipeline route
 Maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP)
 Hydraulic calculations to determine
 Pipeline diameter, wall thickness, and required yield strengths;
 Number of pump stations and distance between pump stations
 Pump station horsepower required

Commonly Pipelines carrying products that are liquid at ambient temperatures and
pressures that do not have to operate at excessive pressures in order to maintain the
product in a liquid state. In this case ethylene vaporizes at ambient temperature. It
must be shipped at higher pressures. This pipeline has to be operated at pressures up
to 1,440 psi in order to keep ethylene in liquid phase.

 Transport by Cargo Tank – Cargo Tank refers to the liquid container, insulation,
supports and outer jacket that are attached to a trailer used to transport cryogenic
liquids over the road.
 Transport by Rail Tank Cars - "Ethylene, Refrigerated Liquid" is transported in
specially built tank cars for that service. It may be transported in two different types
of tank cars, DOT-113C120W and DOT-113D120W. These cars are of special design
so the product remains refrigerated during the transportation of the material to the
destination.

5.3.5 Handling and Disposal of Samples of Ethylene

Disposal and handling of laboratory size and larger samples of ethylene cannot be done
easily. Care must be taken as hazardous material disposal. Laboratory and sample storage
facilities should be appropriate for the associated risks. Test and handling procedures should

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be clear and the laboratory and equipment operating personnel must be well trained. For
disposal inside the plant have to be done by controlled incineration at a remote site with
remote control of the ignition source to help protect personnel and property.

In cases of large quantities of sample disposal, a competent specialist help is recommended in

that cases there are several chemical disposal companies are available with specializing in the
transportation and disposal of hazardous materials. The company must possess the proper
equipment and trained personnel to handle the disposal safely.

5.3.6 Material selection

Proper material selection has to be done for construction of storage tank. For a typical
pressurized sphere tank, carbon steel can be used. Carbon steel is more suitable in existing
wide variety of steel grades if the desired temperature is below -50°F. Stainless steel or other
low temperature alloys also can be used.

5.3.7 Operation of Storage Facility

When filling a storage tank, allowance must be made to properly handle thermal expansion.
The total capacity of the storage vessels must be calculated in order to contain the product in
its normal and expanded states. If provisions are not made for thermal expansion, liquid
leakage through pressure relief valves could occur, resulting in a fire hazard.

A thorough understanding of the level gauge is necessary for safe operation to prevent
overfilling the storage tank. All storage vessels should be supplied with overpressure relief
valves and/or vacuum relief. The set point of these valves should not exceed the Maximum
Allowable Working Pressure (MAWP) of the storage vessel. Double wall tanks should have
overpressure protection on both the inner storage area and the annular space between the
walls. Relief devices should be tested and calibrated on a regular basis.

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5.4 Fire Hazards

A fire hazard can be a chemical compound, process, or situation which causes greater harm to
property or people due to fire. Simply it can be mentioned as a threat to fire safety which is
refers to precautions taken to reduce or prevent likelihood of a fire which might ultimately
result an explosion, thereby a huge human and property loss. A fire can occur by means of
electrical, highly exothermic reactions engaged in the process, flammable chemicals, and of
other processes vulnerable to fire such as heating processes.

Industrial fire hazard can be categorized into four types as follows,

 Ignition sources – As a potential ignition source, any type or form of energy can be
considered. Some of frequent types of ignition sources found in industry are open
flames, electrical wiring or devices, smoking heat sources or hot surfaces, welding
and cutting, friction sparks and arcs, static sparks, chemical reactions and gas
Compression etc.
 Materials - First step of the self-sustaining process of combustion can be considered
as ignition. It may occur as piloted ignition which is also called as forced ignition if
the phenomenon is caused by any outer ignition source, or it may occur as auto
ignition which is also called as self-ignition if the phenomenon is the result of
reactions taking place in the combustible material itself and coupled with heat release.
Almost all the material will ignite and burn except few material. It is known from
practice that nearly all the metals, under certain conditions, are capable of burning in
atmospheric air. Wood, cloth, fuels, chemicals, paints, solvent, cleaning fluid, plastic,
rubber or anything is capable of burning and susceptible to cause a fire.
 Building hazards – Causing major structural failure of roofs and walls, fire can spread
rapidly through a building. Fires can travel horizontally and vertically depending on a
building‘s design. Examples for how fire can travel throughout a building are as
follows. (78)
 Horizontal travel – Doorways, hallways, ceiling spaces, floor spaces,
utility opening, conveyor shafts
 Vertical travel – stairways, elevator shafts, material shafts, utility
openings, conveyor shafts.
 Personal hazards - Escape route to safety are the primary fire hazards to personnel.
Other than that, assembly areas and evacuation methods can be mentioned. Travel

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 distance to an exit, illumination of exiting paths, number and arrangement of exits,
identification of exits, exit pathways, exit doors, exit capacities and stairwells must be
examined in determining the best methods of escape.

5.4.1 Fire hazards involved in the process

One of the basic conditions of safe working is the knowledge of the hazardous parameters of
chemicals. The preventive measures and requirements for protection against fire may be
elaborated only if the physical and chemical properties connected with fire hazard are taken
into consideration. Of these properties, the most important ones are the following:
combustibility, ignitability, ability to react with other materials, water or air, inclination to
corrosion, toxicity, and radioactivity. Most of the chemicals involved in the process are
liquefied hydrocarbon gases and if these liquefied gases were exposed to sufficient heat, they
can create severe fire and explosion hazard. Even a buildup of electrostatic charge that is
generated by flow or agitation of liquid can create fire and explosions.

Electricity is used in all most all the parts of the plant premises for various process and other
purposes. As a result, there may be a risk of fire from leakages or short circuiting of power
lines. On the other hand, there are processes such as steam cracker, heat exchangers, gas
compressors and where heat builds up making the process streams vulnerable to fire or
explosion if the set conditions are violated.

5.4.2 Fire safety

It is well known fact that most of the industrial accidents occur due to fires as a reason of
poor fire safety within the facility providing that how critical the prevention and mitigation of
fire hazards inside the facility is. The design of open process structure for ethylene plant
which deals with highly flammable chemicals and fire hazardous processes, and is also
intended for process operation with human access shall be such that it does not constitute
significant fire or explosion risks to people in and around the facilities and to surrounding
facilities within or outside of process plants. Since reliance for safety to life does not depend
solely on any single safeguard, additional safeguards should always be considered in case any
single safeguard is ineffective due to inappropriate human actions or system failure.

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CHAPTER 06 – MATERIAL AND ENERGY BALANCE THINKING PROCESS

The major raw material used for the production is liquefied natural gas. Other than that steam
and hydrogen will contribute to the process as the process develops from the first stage.
Alkanolamine, Silica gel and palladium will be used as packed beds for the towers where
necessary.

Following conversion formulae are used widely in the material balance calculations to
calculate mass fractions and mole fraction and to convert masses into moles and vice versa.

All the material balances were performed using component basis except the ―Carbon
balance‖ for the unit steam cracker where it was performed balancing elements.

General equation for the material balance:

Energy balances were performed separately for each unit in the plant. Calculations were
performed both manually and using computer software due to unavailability and
inaccessibility to data bases to obtain accurate data required for the operating conditions of
each unit.

Specific heat capacity values for the manual calculations were taken from the data available
in 7th edition of ―Perry‘s chemical engineers‘ handbook, Section 2‖ and all the gases were
treated as ideal gases during the calculation process and the effect of operating pressure was
neglected as data is not available with varying pressures.

[ ⁄ ] [ ⁄ ] 6.5) (79)

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Where:
Cp = Specific Heat Capacity at required temperature
C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 = Constants (vary depending on the substance)
T = Operating temperature

―Aspen PLUS‖ was used to calculate other energy balances as data for manual calculations
are not available and effect of pressure can be taken into account during software calculations
and thus it gives more accurate value.

General energy balance equation;

6.1 Process Flow

Material and energy flow of each unit with the major production stream will be expressed in
this section.

6.1.1 Primary De-Methanizer

Methane in LNG will be separated by cryogenic distillation in de-methanizer tower to use as

an energy source in the plant. As major requirement is to separate methane, Methane is
treated as the light key of the system while ethane is considered as the heavy key which is the
main cracker input. Therefore it is assumed that recovery of methane and ethane at top
product is 99.99% and 0.01% respectively.
 Light key (80)
– the most volatile component in the bottoms but in a significant
concentration is known as the ―Light key‖. Therefore more volatile components than
light key does not go to the bottoms.
 Heavy key – the least volatile component in the distillate but in a significant
concentration is known as the ―Heavy key‖. Therefore less volatile components than
heavy key does not go to distillate.

Only methane (light key) and ethane (heavy key) are distributed between distillate and
bottom. More volatile components than methane goes completely to distillate while less
volatile components than ethane remain in the bottoms.

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Equations and critical steps of calculation:

Overall material balance for the tower;

(81)

Overall material balance for the ith key;

Where:
F = Feed flow rate
D = Distillate flow rate
W =Bottom flow rate
XFi = Mole fraction of ith key in Feed
XDi = Mole fraction of ith key in distillate
XWi = Mole fraction of ith key in bottom product

Table 6.1: Distribution of feed components between distillate and bottom (80)
Component F.XFi (kmol/day) D.XDi W.XWi
Methane (light key) 73793.103 73785.723 7.379
Ethane (heavy key) 12127.445 1.213 12127.445
Propane 2292.788 0 2292.788
Iso – butane 105.969 0 105.969
Neo – butane 202.305 0 202.305
Pentane 19.267 0 19.267
Nitrogen 231.206 231.206 0
Hydrogen Sulfide 982.624 0 982.624
Water 657.724 0 6579.724
Total 96335.643 74018.142 22317.501

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Temperature Calculations for Towers

Bubble point calculation (80)

 A temperature is assumed for the bubble point of tower
 Feed or liquid phase composition and operating pressure are known
 K values are obtained from the literature for the corresponding temperature and
pressure.
 Vapor phase mole fractions were calculated for all the components using,

Where;
Yi = mole fraction of ith component in vapor phase
Ki = K value of ith component
Xi = mole fraction of ith component in liquid phase

 If ƩYi = 1 the assumed temperature is correct and if not a new K value is calculated
for one component and a temperature that satisfies the new K value is taken.

 Repeat the calculation from step 1 until ƩYi =1

Dew point calculation

 The known composition is taken as vapor phase composition.

 A temperature is assumed for the dew point and K values for all the components
were found at corresponding temperature.
 Liquid phase composition (Xi) was calculated for all the composition

 If ƩXi = 1 the assumed temperature is correct and if not a new K value for one
component is calculated.

 New temperature (Tnew) to match the new K value is chosen and K values for all
the components at new temperature are found.
 Calculation was repeated until ƩXi =1.

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The above shown calculation equations and method are common to all the distillation
columns used in the plant.
Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure of the tower = 2000 kPa
 Feed temperature = -102.7°C
 Distillate temperature = - 107.77°C
 Bottom temperature = 15.23°C
A partial re-boiler and a total condenser will be used in the tower.

6.1.2 Primary De-Ethanizer

Ethane needed for the production of ethylene is separated at de-ethanizer tower by cryogenic
distillation. Considering boiling points of the components in the feed it is assumed that only
propane can be distributed between top and bottom products. Therefore propane becomes
both light and heavy key of the system.
 Light key and recovery at distillate = Propane is recovered 0.01% at the top product
 Heavy key and recovery at distillate = Propane at the bottom is 99.99%

The whole amount of ethane in the feed is recovered at the top product. Hydrogen sulfide in
the system will transfer to the cracker with ethane while all the water is removed at the
bottom product.

Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure in the tower = 2000 kPa
 Feed temperature to the tower = 15.23°C
 Distillate temperature = -5.72°C
 Bottom temperature= 124.53°C
The equations and calculation methods used for the calculations are same as in ―Section
5.1.1‖.

6.1.3 Cracker

Inside the cracker a number of byproducts are created other than Ethene due to steam
cracking. However the source for Hydrogen sulfide in the cracker output stream is Sulfur in
feed stream and Carbon dioxide present in the output stream is due to the reaction of coke

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being made with Oxygen in the dilution steam. Conversion of ethane and propane feed stocks
into different products in the cracker can be listed as follows.

Table 6.2: Conversion of different feed stocks in cracker

Ethane Propane MW
Component w/w% w/w% kg/kmol
Benzene 0.26 1.8 78
Butane 0.22 0.05 58
Butene 0.16 1.09 56
Butyne 1.65 2.99 54
Carbon dioxide 0.01 0.01 44
Carbon monoxide 0.03 0.04 28
Ethane 34.99 1.96 30
Ethene 53.43 38.59 28
Ethylbenzene 0 0 106
Ethyne 0.75 0.82 26
Hydrogen 4.12 1.68 2
Hydrogen sulfide 0.01 0.01 34
Methane 2.84 22.4 16
Propane 0.13 10.01 44
Propene 0.97 15.27 42
Propyne 0.02 0.89 40
Pyrolysis fuel oil 0.06 0.58 100
Pyrolysis gasoline 0.24 1.24 100
Steam 0 0 18
Styrene 0.01 0.15 50
Toluene 0.04 0.28 92
Xylenes 0 0.03 106
Cyclobutadiene 0.06 0.11 52

Operating temperature of the tower = 1100°C

Operating pressure of the tower= 1 atm

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Auxiliary units of the cracker

Cracker in this process can be considered as the major unit required for the process. This unit
is consisted of another three auxiliary units as transfer line exchanger, heat exchanger and
steam drum.

Transfer line exchanger (TLE)

Transfer line exchanger is used to cool down the cracker products to some extent which are at
a high temperature prior to feed the product stream to compressors. Though the standard
practice of quenching cracker products was by direct cooling using oil or water these are not
accepted at the present.

Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure = 125 bar
 Inlet temperature of the stream = 800°C
 Outlet temperature of the stream = 350°C

Steam drum

The cold stream of TLE goes through the steam drum producing High Pressure steam which
is converted again to high pressure superheated steam using flue gas recovery to run the
turbines in order to generate power to satisfy plant power requirements.

Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure of the drum = 110 bar
 Supply temperature =130°C
 Target temperature = 318°C

Heat exchanger

A heat exchanger is used to further cool down the hot stream of the TLE prior to compressing
stage of cracker products.

Operating conditions:
 Supply temperature =350°C
 Target temperature = 200°C

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6.1.4 Compressors

Output stream of the cracker is sent through three stage compressor to compress back the gas
stream to some extent before it is sent through pre- scrubber.
 Pressure of the outlet stream = 2000 kPa.
 Inlet temperature of the gas stream = 200°C
 Outlet temperature of the gas stream = 279°C

6.1.5 Pre-Scrubber

Pre-Scrubber is used for the acid gas removal of compressed gas stream from cracker. It is
assumed that only H2S is removed in the pre-scrubber as these are mostly used when
concentration of H2S in product stream of cracker is higher than the desired level. At pre-
scrubber H2S concentration is reduced to 0.2ppm. Further it is assumed that the product
stream from pre-scrubber is saturated with water.
 Operating pressure of the tower = 2000 kPa
 Inlet temperature = 279 °C
 Outlet temperature =162.06 °C

Scrubbing is done using MonoEthanolAmine (MEA) and the scrubbing mechanism is

expressed as follows.

The reaction of MEA with Hydrogen Sulfide produces ―monoethanolamoniumbisulfide‖

removing H2S from the process stream.

6.1.6 NaOH tower

As CO2 is not removed in the pre-scrubber and typically the CO2 concentration cannot be
reduced to desired level at pre-scrubber, a NaOH washer is used to remove excess CO2 and
bring CO2 concentration to 0.2 ppm. The mechanism of removal of NaOH can be viewed as
follows.

Due to this salt formation CO2 is removed from the gas stream.

Page | 70
Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure = 2000 kPa
 Feed temperature = 162.06 °C
 Product temperature = 168°C

6.1.7 Heat exchangers (chiller train)

Liquefied gas stream is sent through two heat exchangers in series to cool down the
temperature of the stream as separation is done in cryogenic conditions. Most of the gases in
the stream have lower boiling points. Therefore in order to feed the distillation towers with
liquid streams the whole stream temperature should be lowered. During this process the
gaseous product stream is converted to a liquid stream. However Hydrogen and Carbon
Monoxide will remain in gaseous state as there critical temperatures are much lower and
behave as non –condensable gases throughout the process.
 In first heat exchanger the product stream from NaOH tower is cooled to a
temperature of 40°C and the operating pressure of the heat exchanger is 2000 kPa.
 In the second heat exchanger this stream is cooled down further to a temperature of -
98.31°C prior to feeding of flash separator. The operating pressure is 2000 kPa.

6.1.8 Flash separator

Water in the liquefied gas stream is removed completely at this stage as at cryogenic
condition water may cause problems to the separation of desired components. Inside the flash
separator only water remains as a liquid and all the other components are taken out from the
vapor phase at the top of the tower.

Operating conditions:
 Pressure of the tower = 2000 kPa
 The temperature of the feed, distillate and bottoms = -98.31°C
At this temperature the vapor phase mixture is at its dew point. The total condenser used at
top of the tower converts this vapor into liquid at the same temperature removing its latent
heat to feed this stream as a liquid to the secondary de- methanizer.

Page | 71
6.1.9 Secondary De-Methanizer

Water free liquefied gas stream is fed to the de-methanizer from the middle of the tower to
remove methane in the feed stream. Considering the boiling point differences and literature
available it is assumed that only ethylene is distributed between top and bottom products and
only 0.01% of ethylene goes to the top product while the rest is recovered at the bottom.
Therefore ethylene is acting as both light and heavy key of the system. But for the calculation
purposes in simulation soft ware ―Aspen PLUS‖ the light key and heavy key was defined as
below.
 Light key and its recovery at top = Methane is the light key and 99.99% is recovered
at distillate.
 Heavy key and its recovery at top = Ethene is the heavy key and 0.5% is present in the
distillate.

Hydrogen and Carbon monoxide are removed with methane at the top product. Within the
system Hydrogen and Carbon monoxide act as non-condensable gases. Due to this reason,
these components do not present in the liquid phase but causes a significant influence for the
vapor pressure of the system. Therefore during temperature calculations of the tower the
impact was calculated treating all the components in vapor phase as ideal gases and using
―Raoult‘s law‖, ―Ideal gas law‖ and ―Dolton‘s partial pressure law.‖

Raoult‘s law
Vapor pressure caused by a component in a liquid mixture above the mixture is equal to the
product of vapor pressure of pure component at the same temperature and mole fraction of
that component in liquid mixture.

Where,
Pj = partial pressure caused by the component j
P0j = Saturated vapor pressure of the component at that temperature
Xj = mole fraction of component j in the liquid phase

Ideal gas law

Where,
P = vapor pressure caused by the component (Pa)

Page | 72
V= volume of the container (m3)
n = Number of moles
R = Universal gas constant (J/mol. K)
T = Temperature (K)
When V, R and T are same for all the system components,

Dolton‘s Partial pressure law

Total pressure of a gas mixture is equal to the sum of partial pressures of its components. Or
the partial pressure of a component is the product of total system pressure and component‘s
mol fraction in gas mixture.
Therefore,

Where;
P = Partial pressure of the component i
PT = Total pressure of the system
Yi = mole fraction of component i in vapor phase
Using equation (6.15) for H2 and CO separately with another component in which the partial
pressure is calculated using ―equation (6.13)‖ in the system, the partial pressure of H2 and CO
can be calculated.

Then this pressure is applied in ―equation (6.16)‖ in the place of ―P‖ and Yi can be calculated.
Therefore now knowing all mole fraction data in vapor phase temperature values of towers
can be calculated.

Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure of the tower = 2000 kPa
 Temperature of the feed = -98.31°C
 Temperature of the distillate = -142.93°C
 Temperature of the bottom = -18.67°C
Partial condenser is used at the top product and methane stream is transferred in gaseous
state.

Page | 73
 Calculation methods and equations used to calculate distribution and tower temperatures
in ―Section 5.1.1‖are common to this unit also.

6.1.10 Secondary De-Ethanizer

Methane free bottom stream from de-methanizer which is at liquid state is fed to the de-
ethanizer to separate C2 components namely, ethene, ethane and ethyne from C3 ( Propane,
Propene, etc.) and other heavier components at the top product. C3 and other heavier
components are removed at the bottom product.

Considering boiling point differences it is assumed that being light key 99.99% of ethyne is
recovered at the top and 0.01%propene which is the heavy key of the system are recovered at
the top product.

Operating Conditions:
 Operating pressure= 2000 kPa
 Feed temperature to the tower= -18.67°C
 Distillate temperature = -19.1065°C
 Bottom temperature= 83.4153°C

The whole amount of ethylene in the feed stream is recovered at the top product. Less volatile
components than Ethyne in top product are in tracer amounts. A partial condenser is used for
the top product as feed to the next stage should be in gaseous state. The calculation methods
and equations used in ―Section 5.1.1‖ are relevant to this tower too.

6.1.11 Heat exchanger

A heat exchanger is used here to heat the distillate stream from secondary de-ethanizer prior
to send it to acetylene converter and to cool the product stream of acetylene converter before
it is sent to the final ethylene fractionator. The heat required for the temperature rise of inlet
stream of acetylene converter is close to the heat released during the cooling of product
stream of the acetylene converter. Therefore the utility requirement for the process is reduced
in this method.
Hot (Product) stream Cold (feed) stream
Supply temperature = 25°C Supply temperature = -19.1056°C
Target temperature = -19.816°C Target temperature = 25°C

Page | 74
The pressure is maintained at a value of 2000 kPa.

6.1.12 Acetylene converter

Ethyne from the top product should be converted to ethylene or ethane as existence of Ethyne
more than 1ppm is poisonous to commercial ethylene. Therefore an acetylene converter is
used and palladium catalyst was selected as a selective catalyst for Ethyne for hydrogenation
of Ethyne into ethylene and ethane. Being a selective catalyst palladium will give a higher
yield of ethylene from Ethyne increasing the ethylene yield.

It is assumed that 100% conversion of Ethyne occurs in the converter and 95% of that ethyne
will only convert to ethylene while only 5% is converted into ethane.

Conversion reactions:

Hydrogen requirement of acetylene converter can be satisfied by the distillate stream of

secondary de-methanizer as it includes excess hydrogen than required by daily consumption
of hydrogen in acetylene converter.

Operating conditions
 Operating pressure = 2000 kPa
 Operating temperature = 25°C

During energy balancing of the stream, the calculations were performed manually and the
heat of reaction was taken into account when doing the energy balance calculations.

Heat of reaction

In acetylene converter a catalyst bed of palladium (commercial catalyst PGH10) is used for
the hydrogenation purposes. Palladium is selected as it acts as a selective catalyst for
acetylene. Therefore as soon as ethylene is made it is removed from the catalyst surface.
However there‘s a slight chance of formation of ethane too.

Page | 75
Adsorption selectivity of palladium:
CO > acetylene >> conjugated di-olefins ≥ alkyl acetylene > di-olefins >> olefins
The useful life of the catalyst is 24 months. The amount of catalyst need for the process is as
follows.

Palladium can adsorb 900 times of its own volume of hydrogen. Therefore the volume of
palladium needed for the adsorption,

Bulk density of the catalyst = 600 kg/m3

Weight of palladium needed = 1233.9 kg

6.1.13 Ethylene Fractionator

After the 100% conversion of Ethyne in converter occurred, only Ethane and Ethylene are
present in the feed stream to the ethylene fractionator. Commercial ethylene purity is
typically more than 99.9 W/W%. Therefore a purity of 99.98 W/W% was assumed and it is
assumed that 99.99% of ethylene from the feed is recovered at the top product as commercial
ethylene. Rest in the top product will be a very small amount of ethane. Major portion of
ethane is taken at the bottom of the tower to recycle it to the steam cracker for the production
of ethylene.

Calculation of component distribution

Rearranging equation (6.7) and (6.8), the following equation is obtained.

Page | 76
 Using this equation distribution of components was found.

Operating conditions:
 Operating pressure = 2000 kPa
 Feed temperature = -19.816°C
 Distillate temperature = -28.6013°C
 Bottom temperature = -5.3534°C
A total condenser is used as the commercial product is transported and sold in liquefied state.

6.2 Utility Requirements

6.2.1 Electricity

Electricity requirement of the plant will be supplied by in house power generation as larger
portion of LNG stream is methane. Streams of methane are sent through the furnace and high
pressure steam is generated using TLEs to run the turbines. This process will lead to
generation of electricity which can be used to run the compressors and pumps and to supply
electrical heating needed during the process. However a portion of methane stream is needed
to generate steam and other thermal energy requirements of the cracker.

Therefore the amount of fuel gas sent to the cracker;

A portion of this stream also produces electricity as in the TLE high pressure steam is
generated and only medium pressure steam is needed to be fed to the cracker as dilution
steam.

Recovered electricity = 74,640 kWh/day

Available amount of fuel gas for the power generation;

Amount of methane streams available for energy generation

Page | 77
Energy generation from this fuel gas;

Therefore total energy generation per day;

Energy generation = 16,610,182 kWh/day

Total energy generation per year;

Total energy generation per year = 5,481,775.360 MWh/year

Pumping requirements and electricity loads:

Table 6.3: Pumps required for the process

Pump Flow rate Density Flow pressure Hydrolic Shaft
(MT/Day) (kg/m3) Capasity head (m) Power Power
3
(m /hr) (kW) (kW)
P1 1823.02 422.59 179.75 45 9.31 13.31
P2 632.82 522.40 50.47 45 3.23 4.62
P3 1190.20 323.22 153.43 5 0.68 0.97
P4 238.06 579.58 17.11 5 0.14 0.19
P5 672.23 10.42 2689.05 45 3.43 4.91
P6 672.17 10.42 2687.41 5 0.38 0.55
P7 672.17 12.68 2207.98 5 0.38 0.55
P8 553.89 22.35 1032.50 45 2.83 4.04

Page | 78
P9 513.41 55.17 387.76 45 2.62 3.75
P10 489.95 27.25 749.16 7 0.39 0.56
P11 420.28 45.82 382.18 45 1.28 1.82
P12 191.77 142.83 19.36 5 0.11 0.16
PHEX2 1700 631.44 112.18 5 0.59 0.85
(4pumps)
Condensing 800 671 49.67709 5 0.45 0.65
Pumps (5)
Compressor 705.73 6.504 4521.128 100 1577.31 2190.708
Total 2232.788
power
Required

70% efficiency of pumps has been assumed during calculations.

Therefore power requirement for a day;

Electricity requirement by Re-boilers;

Table 6.4: Electricity requirement by Re-boilers

Reboiler unit Energy requirement (MW) Electricity requirement
(MW)
Pre- De methanizer 6.8 7.56
Pre- De ethanizer 4.4 4.89
Sec. –De methanizer 0.14 0.156
Sec. –De ethanizer 0.611 0.6789
Ethylene fractionator 4.67 5.189
Total 18.4739

Page | 79
Assume a 90% efficiency of energy utilization by re-boilers.
Therefore;

Assume, other electricity requirement is 10% of above total, therefore;

Therefore the total electricity requirement as a utility to run the plant process is,

Total electricity requirement = 546,657 kWh/day

Excess electricity generation

Excess electricity generation per day = 16,063,525 kWh/day

Yearly excess electricity generation;

Yearly excess electricity generation = 5,300,963 MWh/year

Page | 80
6.4 Material Balance

Page | 81
6.5 Energy Balance

Primary De-Methanizer

DISTILLATE
Total mass flow 1190.2MT/day
Enthalpy -65.38MW
Temperature -107.77 C
Pressure 2MPa
Condenser cooling duty 4.56MW
FEED
Total mass flow 1823.02MT/day
Enthalpy -102.81MW
Temperature -102.7 C
Pressure 2MPa
BOTTOM
Total mass flow 632.82MT/day
Enthalpy -35.19MW
Temperature 15.23 C
Pressure 2MPa
Reboiler heating duty 6.8MW

Page | 89
Primary De-Ethanizer

DISTILLATE
Total mass flow 394.76MT/day
Enthalpy -12.37MW
Temperature -5.72 C
Pressure 2MPa
FEED Condenser cooling duty 3.62MW
Total mass flow 632.82MT/day
Enthalpy -35.09MW
Temperature 15.23 C
Pressure 2MPa
BOTTOM
Total mass flow 238.06MT/day
Enthalpy -21.94MW
Temperature 124.53 C
Pressure 2MPa
Reboiler heating duty 4.4MW

Page | 90
Stack of the furnace
HC‘s OUT
Total mass flow 8473.35kmol/day
HC‘s IN
Total mass flow 8473.35kmol/day Temperature 923K
Temperature 393K Pressure 20bar
Pressure 20bar DIL. STEAM OUT
Total mass flow 6576.29kmol/day
DIL. STEAM IN
Total mass flow 6576.29kmol/day Enthalpy 3761kJ/kg
Enthalpy 2784kJ/kg Temperature 923K
Temperature 460K Pressure 12bar
Pressure 12bar Heat duty 4.38MW

HP SUPER HEATED STEAM OUT

HP STEAM IN
Total mass flow Total mass flow 4.18kg/s
4.18kg/s
Enthalpy 3075kJ/kg
Enthalpy 2705kJ/kg
Temperature 673K
Temperature 591K
110bar Pressure 110bar
Pressure
Heat duty 1.55MW

WATER IN WATER OUT

Total mass flow 4.18kg/s Total mass flow 4.18kg/s
Enthalpy 188.35kJ/kg Enthalpy 2720kJ/kg
Temperature 318K Temperature 403K
Pressure 135bar Pressure 2.7barbar
Heat duty 10.59MW

Page | 91
Radiant section

HC‘s INPUT HC‘s OUTPUT

Total mass flow 19442.34kmol/day Total mass flow 30967.07kmol/day
Temperature 923K Temperature 1073K
Pressure 1.3MPa Pressure 1.3bar
STEAM IN STEAM OUT
Total mass flow 6579.29kmol/day Total mass flow 6570.83kmol/day
Enthalpy 3761kJ/kg Enthalpy 4055kJ/kg
Temperature 923K Temperature 1073K
Pressure 1.3bar Pressure 1.3bar
Sensible Heat
1.27MW
duty
Reaction Heat
19.88MW
duty

Total energy required with assumed 6.5% of loss = 40.28MW

Required flow rate of fuel = 4339.18 kmol/day

Page | 92
Transfer Line Exchanger

HC‘s OUTPUT
HC‘s INPUT Total mass flow 30967.07kmol/day
Total mass flow 30967.07kmol/day Temperature 623K
Temperature 1073K Pressure 1.25MPa
Pressure 1.25MPa STEAM OUT
STEAM IN Total mass flow 6570.83kmol/day
Total mass flow 6570.83kmol/day Enthalpy 2623kJ/kg
Enthalpy 4055kJ/kg Temperature 623K
Temperature 1073K Pressure 1.25bar
Pressure 1.25bar Heat load -9.03MW

Heat Exchanger 02-01

HOT IN
Total mass flow 4.18kg/s HOT OUT
Enthalpy 546kJ/kg Total mass flow 4.18kg/s
Temperature 403K Enthalpy 2705kJ/kg
Pressure 2.76bar Temperature 591K
Pressure 110bar
Heat duty 9.03MW

Page | 93
Heat Exchanger 02-02

INPUT OUTPUT
Total mass flow 30967.07kmol/day Total mass flow 30967.07kmol/day
Temperature 623K Temperature 473K
Pressure 1.25MPa Pressure 1.25MPa
STEAM STEAM
Total mass flow 6570.83kmol/day Total mass flow 6570.83kmol/day
Enthalpy 2623kJ/kg Enthalpy 2623kJ/kg
Temperature 623K Temperature 473K
Pressure 1.25bar Pressure 1.25bar
Heat load -3.11MW

Page | 94
Compressor Bank

FEED
Total Flowrate 705.63MT/Day
Pressure 1MPa
Temperature 200 C
Enthalpy -13.86MW
PRODUCT
Total Flowrate 705.63MT/Day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature 279.55 C
Enthalpy -12.28MW
Duty 1.58MW
Efficiency 0.72

Page | 95
Pre-scrubber

PRODUCT 1
Total Flowrate 672.23MT/day
FEED Pressure 2MPa
705.63MT/Day Temperature 163.16 C
Total Flowrate
2MPa Enthalpy -23.29 MW
Pressure
Temperature 279.55C
Enthalpy -12.29MW

ALK FEED
PRODUCT 2
Total Flowrate 133.2MT/Day
Total Flowrate 166.608 MT/day
Pressure 2MPa 2MPa
Pressure
Temperature 279.55C 190.94C
Temperature
Enthalpy -12.29MW Enthalpy -3.20MW

Page | 96
NaOH Tower

FEED
FEED Total Flowrate 672.17MT/day
Total Flowrate 672.23 MT/day Pressure 2MPa
Pressure 2MPa Temperature 163.041 0C
Temperature 163.165 0C Enthalpy -14.5712 MW
Enthalpy -14.5734 MW

FEED
0.24 MT/day FEED
Total Flowrate
2MPa Total Flowrate 0.27 MT/day
Pressure
35 0C Pressure 2MPa
Temperature
Temperature 163.041
Enthalpy -0.0336 MW
Enthalpy -0.0358 MW

Page | 97
HTX 04 – 01

COLD OUT
Total Flowrate 394.76MT/day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature 120 0C
Enthalpy -10.05 MW

HOT IN HOT OUT

672.17 MT/day Total Flowrate 672.17 MT/day
Total Flowrate
2MPa Pressure 2MPa
Pressure
163.04 0C Temperature 118.33 0C
Temperature
-14.38 MW Enthalpy -16.72 MW
Enthalpy

COLD IN
Total Flowrate 394.76 MT/day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature -5.72 0C
Enthalpy -12.38 MW

Page | 98
HTX 04 – 02

COLD OUT
Total Flowrate 1190.2 MT/day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature -107.13 0C
Enthalpy -61.79 MW

HOT IN HOT OUT

Total Flowrate 672.17 MT/day 672.17 MT/day
Total Flowrate
Pressure 2MPa 2MPa
Pressure
Temperature 118.33 0C 0 0C
Temperature
Enthalpy -16.72 MW -20.42 MW
Enthalpy

COLD IN
Total Flowrate 1190.2 MT/day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature -107.77 0C
Enthalpy -65.5 MW

Page | 99
Separator Drum

TOP
Total mass flow 553.89MT/day
Enthalpy -0.52MW
Temperature -28.6 C
Pressure 2MPa

FEED
Total mass flow 742.48MT/day
Enthalpy -22.53MW
Temperature -19.816 C
Pressure 2MPa

BOTTOM
Total mass flow 118.27MT/day
Enthalpy -22.01MW
Temperature -5.35C
Pressure 2MPa

Page | 100
HTX 04 – 03

COLD OUT
Total Flowrate 1700 MT/day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature -12.33 0C
Enthalpy 0.44 MW

HOT IN HOT OUT

672.17 MT/day Total Flowrate 672.17 MT/day
Total Flowrate
2MPa Pressure 2MPa
Pressure
0 0C Temperature -98.31 0C
Temperature
-0.36 MW Enthalpy -4.78MW
Enthalpy

COLD IN
Total Flowrate 1700 MT/day
Pressure 2MPa
Temperature -125 0C
Enthalpy -3.98 MW

Page | 101
Secondary De-Methanizer

DISTILLATE
Total mass flow 40.48MT/day
Enthalpy -1.54MW
Temperature -142.93 C
Pressure 2MPa
FEED Condenser cooling duty 0.73MW
Total mass flow 553.89MT/day
Enthalpy -4.37MW
Temperature -98.31 C
Pressure 2MPa
BOTTOM
Total mass flow 513.41MT/day
Enthalpy -1.95MW
Temperature -18.67 C
Pressure 2.1MPa
Reboiler heating duty 0.14MW

Page | 102
SecondaryDe-Ethanizer

DISTILLATE
Total mass flow 489.95 /day
Enthalpy 0.23MW
Temperature -19.11 C
Pressure 2MPa
FEED Condenser cooling duty 1.67MW
Total mass flow 513.41MT/day
Enthalpy -1.95MW
Temperature -18.67 C
Pressure 2MPa
BOTTOM
Total mass flow 23.46MT/day
Enthalpy -3.24MW
Temperature 83.42C
Pressure 2MPa
Reboiler heating duty 0.61MW

Page | 103
Ethylene Fractionator

DISTILLATE
Total mass flow 298.51MT/day
Enthalpy 4.41MW
Temperature -28.6 C
Pressure 2MPa
Condenser cooling duty 5.96MW
FEED
Total mass flow 490.28MT/day
Enthalpy -0.80MW
Temperature -19.816 C
Pressure 2MPa
BOTTOM
Total mass flow 191.77MT/day
Enthalpy -6.05MW
Temperature -5.35C
Pressure 2MPa
Reboiler heating duty 4.67MW

Page | 104
CHAPTER 07 – ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

7.1 Total Capital Cost

Capital cost of the production plant accounts for the total of the costs required to equipment
and other machinery, installation of the plant, land and buildings, labor costs and engineering
and supervision chargers required for previously mentioned tasks. The total capital cost of the
plant can be calculated using order of magnitude method due to the unavailability of
complete and accurate piping and instrumentation data and controlling data. This method can
be used in such a situation where the design process is in conceptual stage with accuracy of
20- 30%.

The formula for the calculation;

(82)
⁄

Where;
C1= capital cost of the plant with required capacity in 1998
C0= Known capital cost of the plant with known capacity 515,140,282 USD (83)
Q1= Capacity of the designing plant 100,000 MT / year
Q0= Capacity of the plant with known cost 600,000 MT/ year

(82)
( ⁄ )

Where:
C2= capital cost of plant with required capacity in year 2014
I2= Plant cost index in 2014 (84)
I1= Plant cost index in 1998 (85)
From equation (6.1) it can be derived that,

C1 = 175,806,432 USD

Page | 105
Equation (6.2) yields in,

C2 = 256,194,430.80 USD

1 USD = 131.5789 LKR (86),

C2 = Rs.33,709.79 million

Therefore the capital cost for the plant with capacity of 100,000 MT/year would be,

Rs.33,710 million

7.2 Capital Investment Cost (87)

7.2.1 Fixed Capital Investment Cost

Fixed capital investment is generally 80 – 90% of total capital cost.

Therefore, assume a percentage of 85% of total capital cost accounts for the fixed costs.

Fixed capital investment = Rs.28,654 million

Fixed capital investment = Direct costs + Indirect costs

7.2.1.1 Direct Costs

Direct costs involve the costs of material and labor required for the installation of the plant.
Materials here accounts for the materials used for the equipment, piping and other physical
construction of the plant.

Total direct cost accounts for a 70 – 85% of fixed capital investment. Assume a percentage of
77.5%.

Total direct cost = Rs.22,207 million

Page | 106
Direct cost consists of the following sub categories

1. Cost for the equipment, instrumentation, piping, electrical installation, insulation and
painting – 50-60% of total direct cost
Assume a value of 50% of total direct cost.

Therefore;

Cost = Rs.11,104 million

2. Cost of equipment purchasing – 15-40% of total direct cost

Assume a value of 20% of total direct cost

Cost of equipment purchase = Rs.4,441 million

2.a Cost of installation – 25-55% of cost of equipment purchase

Assume a value of 25% of cost of equipment purchase.

Cost of installation = Rs.1110 million

2.b Cost of instrumentation and controllers – 6-30% of purchased equipment cost

Therefore a value of 6% is assumed.

Cost of instrumentation and controllers = Rs.266 million

2.c Cost of piping – 10-80% of purchased equipment

Assumed value 10% of purchased equipment cost.

Cost of piping = Rs.444 million

2.d Cost of electrical installation – 10-40% of purchased equipment cost

Therefore a value of 10% is assumed.

Page | 107
 Cost of electrical installation = Rs.444 million

2.e Cost of building and other auxiliaries – 10-70% of cost of equipment

purchased
A value of 9% is assumed.

Cost of building and auxiliaries = Rs.400 million

2.f Cost of service facilities – 40-100% of cost of equipment purchase

The assumed value is 40%.

Cost of service facilities = Rs.1,776 million

3. Cost for land is calculated using cost per perch in EPZ, Hambantota as 65,000 LKR.

Cost of land = Rs.1,331 million

4. Cost of engineering and supervision – 5-30% of direct costs

Therefore a percentage of 14% was assumed.

Cost of engineering and supervision = Rs.3,109 million

5. Construction cost of plant – 6-30% of direct costs

The assumed percentage is 10%.

Construction cost of plant =Rs.2,221 million

Total direct cost

Total direct cost = Rs.22,206 million

Page | 108
7.2.1.2 Indirect Costs

Indirect costs accounts for a value between 10-30% of fixed capital cost.

Indirect cost = Rs.6,448 million

Percentage of indirect cost from fixed capital cost

Percentage of indirect cost =

7.2.1.3 Contingency Allocation

Generally, 1-15% of the total capital cost

Thus, assume it is as 8% of the total capital cost.

Contingency allocation = Rs.1,686 million

7.2.1.4 Working Capital Investment

Usually, 10 -20% of total capital cost

Assume a percentage of 10% of total capital cost accounts for the working capital

Working capital investment = Rs.3,371 million

Page | 109
7.3 Total Manufacturing Cost

7.3.1 Fixed Charges

Fixed charges counts for about 10 – 20% of total product cost. Items like depreciation;
insurance, payable taxes are count into this category.

1. Depreciation
Depreciation of plant 3% of fixed capital investment
Depreciation of building 2 -3% of cost of building, assume a value of 3%

Total annual depreciation cost = Rs.872 million

2. Allocation for taxes – 1-4% of fixed capital investment

Assume this is as 2% of fixed capital investment

Allocation for taxes = Rs.573 million

3. Cost of insurance – 0.4 -1% of fixed capital investment

This cost was taken as 1% of fixed capital investment.

Cost of insurance = Rs.286.5 million

Total fixed charges = Rs.1731.5 million

Page | 110
It is assumed that total of fixed charges accounts for 20% of total production cost.
Therefore the total production cost;

Total production cost = Rs.17,315 million

7.3.2 Direct Material Cost

Usually the direct material cost accounts for 10 -50% of the total production cost. However
this can be taken from material balances for the process.

Table 7.1: Material cost

Material Amount (MT/year) Cost (Rs. Million)
Liquefied Natural Gas 601,596 9,575
Hydrogen 0.331 0
Water (steam) 69,097 276.4
Alkanolamine 197 33.4
NaOH 39 2.1
Palladium 1,234 kg (per 2 years) 18.5
Total 9,905.4

7.3.3 Direct Labor Cost

10 -20% of the total product cost

Direct labor cost is calculated assuming a percentage of 10%.

Direct labor cost = Rs.1,731.5 million

Page | 111
7.3.4 Direct other costs

1. Direct supervisory and clerical labor – 10-25% of direct labor cost

Assume a value of 10%.

Direct supervisory and clerical labor = Rs.173 million

2. Cost for Utilities

In this scenario of using liquefied natural gas as major raw material utilities
electricity, steam will be generated using the product streams of ―Primary and
Secondary de-methanizers‖. This electricity production leads to excess amount of
power. These streams contribute an excess amount of methane needed for the
combustion to generate power. And most of the cold streams of the process are used
for cooling purposes of other streams in the process. Therefore the cost of utilities will
be a minimum. Only requirement will be water needed for the generation of steam
and as this is also a makeup water stream. The requirement will be 10 m3 per day.

Cost for Utilities = Rs.13.2 million

3. Cost of maintenance and repair – 2-10% of fixed capital investment

Assumed value is 2% of fixed capital investment.

Cost of maintenance and repair = Rs.573 million

4. Operating supplies cost – 10-20% of repair and maintenance cost

Therefore it is assumed as a percentage of 10%.

Operating supplies cost = Rs.57.3 million

Page | 112
 5. Laboratory charges – 5-20% of the total production cost
This is assumed to be 5% of total production cost.

Laboratory charges = Rs.866 million

6. Allocation for patents and royalties – 0-6% of total production cost

Assume a value of 0.2% of total production cost.

Allocation for patents and royalties = Rs.34.6 million

Direct other costs = Rs.1,717 million

7.3.5 Plant overheads

Generally, plant overheads are 5-15% of the total production cost. Therefore it is assumed
that this costs 5.9% of total production cost. Plant overhead costs counts for plant upkeep,
payroll overhead, salvage, and laboratory and storage facilities.

Plant overheads = Rs.1,022 million

Manufacturing cost = Direct material + Direct labor +Direct other costs + plant overhead +
fixed charges

Manufacturing cost = Rs. 16,107.4 million

Page | 113
7.4 Period Costs

7.4.1 Administration cost

It was estimated that 10% of direct labor cost is equivalent to administration costs that
involve salaries, clerical wages, office supplies, legal payments and communication.

Administration cost = Rs.173 million

7.4.2 Selling and distribution cost

2% of total production cost

Selling and distribution cost = Rs.346.3 million

7.4.3 Research and development cost

1% of total production cost

Research and development cost = Rs.173 million

7.4.4 Financial costs

0.1% of fixed capital investment

Financial cost = Rs.28.7 million

Therefore,

Period cost = Rs.721 million

Page | 114
7.5 Total Production Cost

Total production cost = Rs.16,828 million

Cost per 1 metric ton of ethylene:

Cost per metric ton of ethylene = Rs.168,280

7.6 Total Revenue

Ethylene as main commercial product

Selling price of ethylene in the market;

(88)

Market price = Rs.184,758/MT of Ethylene

This price is the world market price of ethylene. Therefore the CIF (Cost Insurance Freight)
value which consists of 12% VAT, 5% PAL and 2% NBT that are counted on total
production cost is added to the market price, by the time this ethylene reaches Sri Lanka.

Therefore;

Price of ethylene in Sri Lanka = Rs.216,731/MT

Page | 115
Price of ethylene from the plant is decided keeping a profit margin of 5% to the seller.
Therefore, the price of ethylene from the plant is less than the market price.

Price of ethylene from the plant = Rs.206,411/MT

Therefore,

Total sales per year = Rs.20,641 million

Revenue from distribution of excess electricity generation

Amount of excess electricity generation (refer section 6.2.1);

Amount of excess electricity generation = 5,300,963 MWh/year

Average cost per 1MWh of electricity from natural gas = 35.67 USD

However between 10 to 50% of the cost is accounted for the cost of raw materials for the
production. In an ethylene plant, methane is separated at the earlier stages of the process and
therefore the cost for raw materials to produce electricity becomes a minimum.

Suppose this portion is about 25% of the total production cost.

Then the cost per 1MWh of electricity;

Cost of 1MWh of electricity = Rs.3,520.07

Page | 116
 Cost of electricity generation per year = Rs.18,660 million

Considering Ceylon Electricity board tariff regulations an average price per 1 kWh (one
electricity unit) was decided.

Average price per 1 kWh (one electricity unit) = Rs.18

Income from electricity generation;

Income from electricity generation = Rs.95,417 million

Total Revenue;

Total Revenue = Rs.116,058 million

7.7 Economical Evaluation of the Project

7.7.1 Profits

Though there is a revenue from electricity generation, only the costs and revenues from
ethylene plant are taken into consideration for the economical evaluation of the project.

Gross Profit = Total Revenue – Ethylene production cost

Gross profit = Rs.3,813 million

Therefore,
Profit before taxation and depreciation = million

Depreciation =

Page | 117
Profit after depreciation

Profit after depreciation = Rs. 2,941 million

Then, Profit before taxation = million

Tax rate = 15% of Profit before taxation (89);

Tax;

Allocation for tax = Rs.441 million

Profit after taxation;

Profit after tax = Net profit;

Therefore,

Net profit = Rs.2500 million

7.7.2 Payback period

Payback period = 8.5 years

7.7.3 Rate of Return

Rate of return = 8.72%

Page | 118
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Page | xxi
APPENDICES

MEETING AGENDA 1

Project Name Production of ethylene from Natural Gas Group No: 10

Date of Meeting 06/11/2014 Time: 2.00 PM

Meeting Facilitator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage Location: Department of

Chemical and Process
Engineering
Attendees Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M (100331P) MeetingNo: 01
Mihiranga P.A.D (100339X)
Nivegithan P. (100361G)
Perera A.T.K (100375D)
Perera S.M.H.D (100390T)

1. Meeting Objective
Deciding the content and format of literature review for the given project

2. Pre-work/Preparation (documents/handouts to bring, reading material, etc.)

Description Prepared by
Introduction- ethylene and its applications Perera S. M. H. D
Introduction- demand, production capacity globally Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M
and locally.
Available processes of production Mihiranga P.A.D

Process selection and land selection Perera A. T. K.

Tax incentives, logistics and utilities Nivegithan P.

Minutes Prepared by: Perera A. T. K.

Page | xxii
MEETING AGENDA 2

Project Name Production of ethylene from Natural Gas Group No: 10

Date of Meeting 06/18/2014 Time: 9.00 AM

Meeting Facilitator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage Location: Department of

Chemical and Process
Engineering
Attendees Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M (100331P) MeetingNo: 02
Mihiranga P.A.D (100339X)
Nivegithan P. (100361G)
Perera A.T.K (100375D)
Perera S.M.H.D (100390T)

1. Meeting Objective
Reviewing the information found, check the gaps of literature review and divide
documentation of information among group members.

2. Pre-work/Preparation (documents/handouts to bring, reading material, etc.)

Description Prepared by
Introduction- ethylene and its applications Perera S. M. H. D
Introduction- demand, production capacity globally Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M
and locally.
Available processes of production Mihiranga P.A.D

Process selection and land selection Perera A. T. K.

Tax incentives, logistics and utilities Nivegithan P.

Minutes Prepared by: Mihiranga P. A. D.

Page | xxiii
MEETING AGENDA 3

Project Name Production of ethylene from Natural Gas Group No: 10

Date of Meeting 06/19/2014 Time: 1.30 PM

Meeting Facilitator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage Location: Department of

Chemical and Process
Engineering
Attendees Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M (100331P) MeetingNo: 03
Mihiranga P.A.D (100339X)
Nivegithan P. (100361G)
Perera A.T.K (100375D)
Perera S.M.H.D (100390T)

1. Meeting Objective
Presenting the rough document created on literature review to the supervisor Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha
Egodage

2. Pre-work/Preparation (documents/handouts to bring, reading material, etc.)

Description Prepared by
Introduction- ethylene and its applications Perera S. M. H. D
Capacity of plant comparing with global and local Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M
demand
Available processes of production and global raw Mihiranga P.A.D
material usage
Site selection and Hambantota port plan Perera A. T. K.
Tax incentives, Transportation of raw materials Nivegithan P.

Minutes Prepared by: Mihiranga P. A. D.

Page | xxiv
MEETING AGENDA 4

Project Name Production of ethylene from Natural Gas Group No: 10

Date of Meeting 07/02/2014 Time: 2.00 PM

Meeting Facilitator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage Location: Department of

Chemical and Process
Engineering
Attendees Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M (100331P) MeetingNo: 04
Mihiranga P.A.D (100339X)
Nivegithan P. (100361G)
Perera A.T.K (100375D)
Perera S.M.H.D (100390T)

1. Meeting Objective
Discuss about the next phase of project Environment, Health and safety aspects of ethylene
production and plant layout with Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage and divide tasks among group
members

2. Pre-work/Preparation (documents/handouts to bring, reading material, etc.)

Description Prepared by
Fire safety and mitigation Perera S. M. H. D
Electrical Safety, environment safety (part) Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M
Plant layout preparation, environment safety Mihiranga P.A.D
Chemical safety, preventive measures Perera A. T. K.
Raw material handling and storage Nivegithan P.

Minutes Prepared by: Perera A. T. K.

Page | xxv
MEETING AGENDA 5

Project Name Production of ethylene from Natural Gas Group No: 10

Date of Meeting 07/18/2014 Time: 2.00 PM

Meeting Facilitator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage Location: Department of

Chemical and Process
Engineering
Attendees Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M (100331P) MeetingNo: 05
Mihiranga P.A.D (100339X)
Nivegithan P. (100361G)
Perera A.T.K (100375D)
Perera S.M.H.D (100390T)

1. Meeting Objective
Discuss about the next phase of project Mass and energy balances with Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha
Egodage and divide tasks among group members

2. Pre-work/Preparation (documents/handouts to bring, reading material, etc.)

Description Prepared by
Primary de methanizer and ethanizer Nivegithan P.
Steam cracker, quench tower, identify process Mihiranga P.A.D
equipments
Compressors, Pre scrubber and NaOH tower Perera S. M. H. D.
Chiller train, dryer and secondary de- methanizer Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M
Secondary de-ethanizer, acetylene convereter and Perera A. T. K.
ethylene fractionators, identify process equipments

Minutes Prepared by: Mihiranga P. A. D.

Page | xxvi
MEETING AGENDA 6

Project Name Production of ethylene from Natural Gas Group No: 10

Date of Meeting 08/25/2014 Time: 2.00 PM

Meeting Facilitator Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage Location: Department of

Chemical and Process
Engineering
Attendees Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M (100331P) MeetingNo: 06
Mihiranga P.A.D (100339X)
Nivegithan P. (100361G)
Perera A.T.K (100375D)
Perera S.M.H.D (100390T)

1. Meeting Objective
Discuss and finalize the format and content of final project report including economic
analysis with Dr. (Mrs.) Shantha Egodage.

2. Pre-work/Preparation (documents/handouts to bring, reading material, etc.)

Description Prepared by
Review all the assignments and edit them to fit the Mihiranga P.A.D.
final report and filling the gaps of information
required and finalize the report
Process flow diagram preparation and raw material Perera S. M. H. D.
cost calculations
Finalizing energy balances of each equipment and Nivegithan P
make word documents
Finalizing energy balances and select pumping Mannapperuma M.M.A.P.M
capacities and electricity requirement
Preparation of Mass and energy balance theories word Perera A. T. K.
document and look into economic analysis

Minutes Prepared by: Perera A. T. K.

Page | xxvii
Page | xxviii