How to Cut Emissions & Fuel + Increase Capacity in Fired Heaters
Understanding the Problem
Fired heaters have the most significant running costs in refineries and petrochemical sites worldwide. This challenge particularly affects African markets, where energy costs and reliability concerns can dramatically impact operational viability. Even a minor inefficiency of just 1-2% in these critical assets can consume an additional $1 million in fuel annually, resulting in millions in lost production revenue.
The African refining sector faces unique challenges, including aging infrastructure, limited access to regular maintenance expertise, and significant underutilization of capacity. Many facilities often run with dated equipment that hasn’t benefited from modern efficiency improvements, creating both a challenge and an opportunity for substantial gains when optimizing fired heater performance.
Beyond the direct financial impact, inefficient fired heaters significantly contribute to environmental concerns through excessive emissions. As environmental regulations tighten globally, optimizing these systems becomes not just an economic necessity but an environmental one too.
Solutions and Approaches to Improve Fired Heater Efficiency
Several specialized solutions address fired heater inefficiency, each offering unique advantages.
Cetek® Coatings
High-Emissivity Ceramic Coatings for Process Tubes and Refractory
These coatings provide a protective thin-film layer on process tubes that prevents oxidation, corrosion, and carburization while maintaining optimal thermal conductivity. These coatings can deliver productivity benefits of 4-10%, decrease bridge wall temperatures, and extend tube life with rapid ROI. When applied to both tubes and refractory surfaces, the benefits compound significantly.
TubeTech™
Engineered Convection Section Cleaning
This system removes accumulated fouling that severely impacts heat transfer efficiency. Advanced cleaning technologies can remove over 90% of fouling without damaging refractory materials or requiring manual entry, reducing stack temperatures, reinstating thermal efficiency, and extending asset life.
Alternative approaches like conventional chemical cleaning or standard hydro blasting often fail to achieve the same results, particularly with complex geometries or stubborn deposits. These traditional methods typically require longer downtime and may damage delicate components, making specialized services more cost-effective despite the higher initial investment.
Hot-tek™
Online Maintenance & Emergency Services (During the Heater’s Normal Operation)
Online solutions enable critical interventions without shutting down operations. These services include hot refractory repair, tube descaling, tube stabilization, convection cleaning, and inspection, allowing operators to restore efficiency while maintaining production. This approach avoids the substantial costs associated with unplanned shutdowns, which can run into millions of dollars per day at major facilities.
Case Study
Restoring a TWISTED TUBE™ Heat Exchanger in South Africa
A South African refinery faced significant challenges with its TWISTED TUBE™ heat exchangers that had been accumulating fouling since their installation in 2008. Despite multiple attempts using conventional cleaning methods including chemical cleaning and hydro blasting, the facility could not restore these complex exchangers to optimal performance.
The situation required specialized intervention from TubeTech™, which rapidly mobilized a team of 24 technicians working around the clock. Utilizing a multi-system approach specifically designed for helical tube configurations, they employed remotely controlled water jetting systems with custom tips for twisted tube fouling to access deposits deep within the exchangers.
The client commented, “We were really impressed with TubeTech’s performance and how clean the bundles are; the cleanest we have seen since installation in 2008!”
The successful intervention not only improved efficiency but ensured the refinery could restart on schedule after shutdown, avoiding costly extensions to planned downtime and delivering immediate improvements in heat transfer efficiency, which directly translates to fuel savings and emissions reduction.
By implementing these specialized solutions, refineries and petrochemical facilities can significantly improve fired heater efficiency, cutting costs and emissions while extending the operational life of these critical assets.
Visit www.integratedglobal.com to learn more about fired heater efficiency
Contact: info@integratedglobal.com
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