Effects of Chlorides in Hydrotreating units

[Nasir Hussain]

Indications/Effects of Corrosion:
Salt deposition in reactor preheat exchangers and sometimes observed fouling in the exchangers. 
Reactor’s fouling which shows the high differential pressure.
Reactor effluent final exchanges fouling due to NH3-CL.
Stripper feed preheat exchangers corrosion
Corrosion in the upper part of stripper/fractionator.
Valves failure in a recycle gas reciprocating compressor or capacity loss of centrifugal compressor, in case the source is makeup gas.

Sources

Salts/chlorides from crude oil transferred to Hydrotreating unit with feed. 
Makeup gas from reforming unit

Control Actions: 

Analyse the feed streams for chlorides. 
Analyse the makeup gas 
Check the working of Desalter at upstream crude distillation unit. 
Check the performance of upstream Chloride Treater at reformer unit. 
For further details;
https://becht.com/docs/Steve_Treese_Petroleum_Technology_Quarterly.pdf

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