Delek lets contract for emissions-cutting technology at Tyler refinery

Delek US Holdings Inc. has let a contract to ClearSign Combustion Corp., Seattle, to implement its Duplex combustion and emissions-control technology at the newly expanded 75,000-b/d refinery in Tyler, Tex.

The project, to be executed by JLCC Inc., Lindale, Tex., on behalf of ClearSign, includes the retrofitting of burners inside one of the refinery’s process heaters with the Duplex technology, which is intended to eliminate potential flame impingement on process tubes in an effort to improve Tyler’s utilization rates, reduce maintenance costs and downtime, and reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, ClearSign said.

If this initial installation proves a viable solution for the Tyler plant, Delek has agreed to consider retrofitting the Duplex technology into other process heaters in its operations, according to ClearSign.

A value of the contract was not disclosed.

Earlier this year, Delek wrapped a project at Tyler to expand the refinery’s crude processing capacity by 15,000 b/d, or 20%, from its previous processing capability of 60,000 b/d (OGJ Online, Mar. 26, 2015).

Completed during a 2-month planned maintenance turnaround, the expansion project involved modifications to the refinery’s atmospheric and vacuum distillation units, naphtha hydrotreater, diesel hydrotreater, and saturate gas unit, as well as a minor modification to the delayed coker’s fractionator (OGJ, Sept. 7, 2015, p. 104).

Completion of the Tyler refinery’s February-March 2015 turnaround marked the end of a large-scale capital investment program in the company’s refining segment to increase crude flexibility and overall processing capacity of both of Delek’s US refineries.

In a February 2014 planned maintenance turnaround of its 80,000-b/d El Dorado, Ark., refinery, Delek executed a series of similar projects to improve processing flexibility, including the replacement of the refinery’s FCC reactor and a debottlenecking of the crude preflash tower to increase its ability to process lighter crudes by 10,000 b/d (OGJ Online, May 8, 2014).

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].