Astron International, Inc. recognizes the situation in which the world wide refining market finds itself and has created a refining consulting division in response to a shortage of people in the industry.
Mr. CJ Farley has joined Astron to lead our refining consulting effort. Mr. Farley brings 18 years of Fluidized Catalytic Cracking experience, combining operations troubleshooting and optimization with hardware design and catalyst technology know-how. CJ is the first person added to our growing organization to provide services to the refining industry.
As of June 2008, Astron International is offering multiple services in the areas of refining consulting, including:
- FCCU reliability monitoring
- FCCU troubleshooting
- FCCU performance surveys to benchmark relative to competition and design
- Refining process unit data monitoring
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Causes of FCCU Shutdowns |
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Major Rotating Equipment failure |
38% |
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Catalyst circulation failure |
13% |
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Cyclone failure |
11% |
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Utility failure |
10% |
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Scheduled |
8% |
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Other Equipment (slide valve/refractory) |
7% |
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Other rotating equipment |
6% |
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Human Error |
6% |
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Gas plant failure |
3% |
FCC Reliability Monitoring Astron International is also continuing our 13 year history of employing web applications to enhance performance in the refining industry. Our reliability monitoring service (patent pending) will lead to improved FCCU performance relative to operating plan and budget, and will enable refiners in managing operations to meet required run lengths and reduce unplanned shutdowns.
The FCCU industry is challenging; refiners are trying to make ever increasing run lengths, yet the industry feedback is that few units actually head into their scheduled turnarounds without taking premature outages. One of the keystones of Astron’s Refining Consulting Division is our ability to improve FCCU reliability.
For further information please visit www.refiningonline.com/reliability.
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