Start-up, shutdown and turndown
With the ongoing changes in gas field and refinery feedstock compositions, many sulphur recovery units around the world are facing turndown scenarios to such an extent that it is difficult to meet stringent environmental regulations. Equipment and instrumentation behave differently under turndown conditions, and not always in ways that are desirable. Start-ups and shutdowns can place demands on the equipment that are more severe than years of normal operation. In this article, Optimized Gas Treating, Sulfur Recovery Engineering and Comprimo share some of their learnings and experiences of these scenarios.