Conservation in a Gulf Coast Chemical Plant

The MCA reports chemical industry energy compared to 1972 to be 24.2% (1981 data). This paper will describe the activity of one Gulf Coast chemical industry plant which has reduced consumption by 41%. Improvements have been made via energy housekeeping, process improvements, and equipment improvements. The first two areas will be covered briefly. The remainder of the paper will highlight the application of equipment retrofit technology which has been successfully implemented or is currently being installed or designed. The location efforts to improve the efficiency of fuel fired equipment including a major retrofit of heat tube preheaters and waste heat boiler installation will be discussed. Three applications of waste material recovery will be developed. Other retrofit applications mentioned in the paper include insulation, instrumentation, process waste heat recovery, and plant energy housekeeping