A case study of cogeneration for Jeddah and Yanbu petromin refineries in Saudi Arabia

Abstract The Petromin refineries in Jeddah and Yanbu, Saudi Arabia produce power and process steam separately. The Jeddah refinery gas turbines that have an installed capacity of 88 MW, run at less than 50% utilization factor. The refinery demand of steam is 70–120 tons h −1 . The electric power demand of Yanbu refinery is supplied by The Royal Commission of Yanbu at a rate of 16–25 MW. The steam consumption is 68 tons h −1 . Data were collected for the performance and requirement for both plants. An integrated system for cogeneration is proposed which consists of a gas turbine, heat recovery steam generator equipped with a supplementary duct burner and economizer. The thermal and economical analyses have proved the feasibility of the proposed system with payback periods of 23 and 36 months for Jeddah and Yanbu refineries, respectively. However, the payback period for Jeddah refinery can be reduced to 15 months if the utilization factor is improved, and the excess power generated by the gas turbines is connected to the public utility grid. In fact, it is worth mentioning that the present study is considered the first to be carried out in Saudi Arabia; more studies and investigations could lead to tremendous saving in the fuel consumption in this country.