Petcoke to power

Petcoke to power
Robert Giglio, Vice President of Strategic Planning and Marketing for Foster
Wheelers Global Power Group, looks at how Petcoke could benefit the region

hile the economies of North

America, Europe and now
China are slowing due to a
weak global economic recovery, annual GDP growth in the Middle East is
expected to average about 4.5-5.0% over the
next 5 years, driven primarily by the expectation of sustained global oil demand and
prices.
Power consumption growth in the Middle
East is expected to be even higher, averaging
about 5-10% over this period, driven by not only
high GDP growth, but also by energy intensive
structural changes occurring to many econowww.utilities-me.com 

mies within the region. Growth in new residential homes, tourism, commercial and industrial
sectors are creating new electric loads needed
to support more fresh water, air conditioning,
lighting, appliances, electronics (computers,
network servers, communication and entertainment systems) and energy intensive industries
(petrochemicals, metals, cement, steel, and general manufacturing).

The Strong Dependence on Oil for

Power Generation in the Middle East
Unlike anywhere else in the world, the Middle
East depends strongly on oil to produce electric-

ity. About 30% of the electricity generated in the

Middle East is produced from oil fuels, predominantly diesel, crude oil and heavy fuel oil (HFO),
as compared to the rest of the world for which
only 8% of its power is generated from oil fuels.
The regions high use of oil fuels for power
generation is a direct consequence of decades
of generous government oil and electricity subsidies. Electricity rates are typically regulated
so that consumers see very low rates. To ensure
that power producers stay in business, the value
of the oil fuel is set such that power producers
earn a fair profit. This subsidised in country
oil fuel value can be 10 to 20 times less than the
June 2013 / Utilities Middle East

21

petcoke to power

2012 Electricity Production (GWeh)

Middle East

World
Oil Fuels

8%

Oil Fuels

30%
Others

Others

70%

92%

Total: 232 GWeh

global market value of the oil fuel.

The intention behind most Government subsidies in the region is to grow and diversify their
economies and create employment for their
growing populations by expanding or developing industries such as refining, petrochemicals, manufacturing, steel, aluminum, computing and data storage. These industries happen
to be energy intensive. Another aim is to provide
an energy discount benefit to consumers living
in these countries. But on the negative side, the

Crude Oil

Typical
Distillation
Process
Vacuum Residue

Refined Products

Light Products

Delayed
Coking Unit

Petcoke

CFB Power
Plant

Power and Steam

22 Utilities Middle East / June 2013

Total: 5,502 GWeh

artificially low in country energy value promotes inefficiency and over consumption of
both electricity and valuable oil fuels.
In the past, this model has worked since the
electricity consumption in the region has been
modest. However with electricity demand now
growing at 5%-10% per year, the use of oil fuels
for power production is dramatically increasing
driving domestic oil consumption to very high
levels. The very low value of domestic oil and
electricity is exacerbating the situation since
it discourages energy efficiency and oil conservation.

Petcoke To Power A strategic Energy

Option For The Middle East
Using petroleum coke (petcoke) as a fuel and
feedstock for power and hydrogen is one solution for reducing the regions ballooning domestic oil consumption providing numerous strategic benefits to the Middle East:
A large-scale solution for new power capacity
that does not use liquid oil fuels
Improves fuel security for the region since
petcoke is a byproduct of oil refining
Improves refinery efficiency and economics
since delayed coking technology improves
refinery yields by over 20%
A source of new jobs in the refining, petrochemical, power and construction sectors.
Foster Wheelers has established a proven
petcoke to power concept utilising delayed
coking and circulating fluidised bed (CFB) technology and to extract additional light petroleum

Coker
Gas
LPG
Naphtha
Residue
LCGO to
Diesel
HCGO to
HDS, HC
or
FCC

Coke

products from refinery residues and produce

power and steam from the solid petcoke byproduct from the delayed cokers.

Delayed Coking Technology

The delayed coking process converts refinery
residues into additional gases and liquids:
C1-C2 coker gas
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)
Naphtha to be processed and blended into
gasoline
Light coker gas oil (LCGO) to be processed and
blended into diesel
Heavy coker gas oil (HGCO) suitable for downstream hydrodesulfurisation (HDS), hydrowww.utilities-me.com

petcoke to power

Circulating Fluidized Bed Steam Generating Technology

458 MWth, 220 Mwe, 160/142 kg/s
164/43 bar (a), 560/5600C

Evaporative
Wing Walls

Convective SH/RH

Compact
Solid
Separators

Economizer
Rotary Air
Preheater

Intrex

Ash Cooling
System

Jyvskyln Energia Oy, Jyvkyl, Finland

cracking (HC) or fluid catalytic cracking
(FCC) to produce transportation fuels
There are over 170 refineries across 37 countries with operating cokers throughout the
world. Despite the regions crude oil reserves,
refineries in the Middle East and Africa
account for only about 3% of the total global
coking capacity today. However, as petroleum
producing nations in the Middle East pursue
plans to become major exporters of petroleum products, complex refinery projects
with delayed coking units (DCUs) are underway in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Abu Dhabi. It
is projected that by 2014, coking capacity in
the Middle East will triple from its current level
and grow at 25%per year on average between
2011-2016, the highest rate in the world.

Circulating Fluid Bed Steam Generating Technology

Circulating fluid bed (CFB) technology is ideal
for petcoke due to its long burning process to
ensure complete combustion of the low volatile petcoke and its ability to capture a high
level of the petcokes sulfur (typically 5-7%)
during the combustion process. The vigorous
www.utilities-me.com 

mixing of the fuel, limestone and ash particles

during the low temperature fluidised process
allows the CFB to cleanly and efficiently burn
almost any combustible material while minimising the formation of NOx and optimising
the capture of SOx as the fuel burns. The combustion temperature is well below the melting
point of the fuels ash allowing the CFB to minimise the corrosion and fouling issues experienced in conventional boilers. For petcokes
with high levels of metals (vanadium, nickel,
sodium, potassium), CFB technology has demonstrated years of reliable and low maintenance operation.
With todays heightened concern for carbon
emissions, Foster Wheeler CFBs have successfully burned biomass, recycled, and waste
materials providing a reduced-carbon solution

3%
Region refineries account
for a small proportion of
global coking capacity

for large-scale utility power generation as well

as for industrial and district heating plants. For
the longer-term, Foster Wheeler is developing
Flexi-Burn CFB technology which will allow
the CFB to generate a CO2-rich flue gas, and
be part of a practical CO2 capture and storage
solution, capable of reducing CO2 emissions by
over 90%.

Conclusions
Future oil export capability in the Middle East
is threatened by a high and strongly growing
domestic consumption of oil fuels for power
generation. To satisfy strong power demand
growth while curbing the alarming growth of
domestic oil consumption, alternative nonoil power generation technologies must be
adopted in the Middle East.
Petroleum coke (petcoke) is a viable economic and secure alternative fuel for power that
can reduce the regions growing oil dependency.
Delayed coking (DC) and circulating fluidised
bed (CFB) technologies are two enabling technologies proven in other parts of the world that
can bring multiple benefits to both the power
and oil refining sectors in the region.
June 2013 / Utilities Middle East

23