Ramaseshan, V.

Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Vinod Ramaseshan is a hydroprocessing engineering specialist for Saudi Aramco and has over 22 years of experience in the petroleum refining industry. He began his career with Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. and worked for UOP Ltd. before joining Saudi Aramco. Mr. Ramaseshan has been involved with commissioning, operating, troubleshooting and optimizing new and revamped hydrocracking and hydrotreating units in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and India regions. He holds an MS degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, and is a charted engineer in the UK.

Catalyst replacement strategy for a hydrocracking unit at a Middle East refinery

A Saudi Aramco refinery operates a series-flow, single-stage hydrocracking unit (HU) in a recycle high-conversion mode. The HU has been in operation for over 35 years and is being debottlenecked to increase its throughput by 20%.

Decrease tube metal temperature in vacuum heaters

Various options for reducing the TMT of a vacuum heater, such as changing the transfer line size and adding extra surface area in the radiation and convection sections, are examined here. The best option generally depends on the limitations under which the heater operates with regard to the process requirements and the downstream equipment limitations and flexibility.

Troubleshoot and optimize debutanizer columns in hydrocrackers

Ramaseshan, V., Al-Khani, A., Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco’s Riyadh refinery operates a series-flow, single-stage hydrocracking unit (HCU) in recycle high-conversion mode. The unit underwent a revamp in 1983 and presently processes a mixture..