Aggreko equipment minimize losses on RPBC production

Petrobras SA is Brazil’s largest energy company, hired Aggreko to supply energy generators and chillers for six months period to one of its Refineries. 

The chilling package will be used to maintain temperatures for the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU), at the RPBC refinery on the coast of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Cracking Unit (FCCU) is an integral part of modern refineries, used to convert crude oil into products such as gasoline, cooking gas and other products.

The FCCU uses a high-heat conversion process to ‘crack’ chains of hydrocarbons contained in crude oil into smaller chains, which result in other oil products. The refinery approached Aggreko after determining that the FCCU was experiencing production losses of approximately eight per cent each summer due to high ambient temperatures.

Aggreko provided a turn-key chilling package which has successfully lowered the temperature of the FCCU by 12◦C. Currently, RPBC is responsible for 11 per cent of Brazil’s byproduct production and has a capacity of 170,000 barrels of byproduct per day, making stable production an especially important consideration for the company.