Successes and achievements of TAIF-NK JSC in energy conservation awarded with international exhibition diploma

TEF is a platform for the exchange of experience and opinions

The Tatarstan International Forum on Energy and Energy Resource Efficiency has long become one of the leading specialised platforms in Russia. It is no coincidence that high-ranking representatives of the federal authorities traditionally take part in its work. This time, the forum has been attended by Aide to the President of Russia Igor Levitin, Governor of Kemerovo Oblast — Kuzbass, Chairman of the State Council of the Russian Federation in Energy direction Sergey Tsivilev, and First Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia Ilya Torosov, along with Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov and Deputy Prime Minister of Tatarstan, Minister of Trade and Industry of Tatarstan Albert Karimov.

“The Tatarstan Forum has established itself as an authoritative platform for exchanging opinions and promoting technologies and projects," said Rustam Minnikhanov in his speech preceding the opening of the forum.

The proof that companies and enterprises have something to tell and share was the exposition of the XXII International Specialised Exhibition “Energy. Resource Conservation — 2022", where the exposition of TAIF-NK JSC stood out vividly among the stands from all over the country and abroad.

The company, which unites the Oil Refinery, the gasoline plant and the Heavy Residue Conversion Complex, occupies leading positions in the oil refining industry of the Republic of Tatarstan. It is no coincidence that the participants of the tour lingered there for a while. Maksim Novikov, the director general of the company, informed the head of the republic and the guests of the event about the company's achievements in the field of energy conservation:

“We talked about how TAIF-NK enterprises are organised in terms of energy efficiency, energy and resource conservation. In fact, this direction has a systemic nature. Since 2015, we have been signing and implementing energy conservation programmes, the result of which is a real effect — there are volumes of saved energy resources, for 7 years it is the equivalent of 234,000 tonnes of reference fuel. And if we recalculate the volumes of emissions into the atmosphere prevented during the same period, we get a figure of 376,000 tonnes of CO2," he stated.

As the director general of the company later explained to journalists, today it is almost impossible to separate some goals and ways to achieve them from others, no less important ones. The tasks of caring for nature and reducing the burden on the environment are solved in parallel along with the issues of energy efficiency and the prudent use of raw materials.

Energy conservation is a large-scale task that requires an integrated approach, Vasily Vasilkov, the chief power engineer at TAIF-NK JSC, stressed in an interview with Realnoe Vremya:

“First of all, the company develops and subsequently implements energy saving measures. These are the measures that can be carried out through capital investments: to improve something somewhere, to supplement the technology, to make it more efficient, and so on. Another important point, and we also told the president about it today, is the company's policy in the field of energy conservation and energy reliability. The main objectives of such policy are the rhythmic and uninterrupted operation of technological units in the conditions of rational use of energy resources. Any shutdown leads not only to direct losses due to that production stops for a while, but also to the need to overspend energy resources. A lot of energy resources are spent on startup operations. One such shutdown can cancel out the results of the company's energy conservation over a month.

As the company emphasises, the key to the overall success of the company is the willingness of everyone who works at its production facilities to increase this very efficiency and reliability with their work.

“When everyone puts a piece of their work into the common cause, the effect is large-scale. Even in comparison with the indicators of 2020, there is a result in saving thermal energy, electric energy, and natural gas. In monetary terms, it amounts to 208 million rubles a year, saved only through the rational use of these resources," Maksim Novikov cited the figures.

Increasing the result year by year

The oil refining complex has set itself such a task. And there is a result: in comparison with the results of 2020, in 2021 the share of energy consumption in the structure of the production cost of the company's products was seriously reduced — by 10% less thermal energy was consumed for the production of the same volumes of products, by 7% less electricity was consumed, and by 2% less natural gas was required.

The company actively introduces innovations and looks for ways to further improve the efficiency of production. For example, serious attention is paid to the use of secondary energy resources. The most vivid embodiment of this was found in the installation of hydrocracking of heavy residues.

“The processes are exothermic, and this excess heat is used to produce high-pressure steam. It, in its turn, set in motion the drives of pumps and compressors, which makes it possible to abandon the use of electric motors with a total equivalent capacity of 15 MW. This is comparable to the energy required for the operation of the lighting lamps of all residential buildings in Nizhnekamsk. But that is not all: after the steam performs useful work as drives of dynamic equipment, it is converted into low-pressure steam, which is later used by consumers, for example, as heating of technological flows. The accumulated condensate is purified, after which it returns to the beginning of the process and is used in a new cycle as a coolant. This is not the end of the efficiency of TAIF-NK production facilities — all wastewater generated during the production process is collected at the site and sent to local treatment facilities, after which it is returned as a recharge of the circulating water supply system. For reference, since 2016, this approach has made it possible to clean and return to the cycle more than 10 million cubic metres of wastewater. This is an excellent example of a circular economy or, as it is also called, closed-loop economy," Maksim Novikov told about one of the already implemented and successfully proven technologies.

Another successful innovation, simultaneously solving the problems of both energy efficiency and resource conservation, was implemented there — at the hydrocracking site of heavy residues. In one of the processes, a lot of hydrogen-containing gases are formed. Not to lose valuable raw materials and reduce the burden on the environment, the company purchased and installed a small unit with carefully selected molecular sieves.

“The sieves allow to separate hydrogen from process gases and return them to the cycle. The capacity of such unit is about 12,600 tonnes of hydrogen a year, which is comparable to the hydrogen production plant at the refinery. At the same time, the process does not require any costs for either electricity or natural gas. The unit operates in autonomous mode," said the director general of the company.

Another example is a second life for phenol-containing effluents. They are formed in the process of catalytic cracking of vacuum gas oil. By the recommendation of the design institute, we return them to the salt washing during the primary distillation of oil. Accordingly, the entire phenol remains in the cycle and leaves already with hydrocarbons," said the CEO of the company.

Improving, without harm

Trying to get better in some processes, it is important not to harm others — the chief power engineer of TAIF-NK JSC is sure.

“There are two basic concepts for energy service specialists — reliability and efficiency. They are related and, at the same time, contradict each other. They are similar in that reliable operation of power equipment contributes, as already mentioned earlier, to smooth production without interruptions. But at the same time, the reliability of the power system implies the presence of a reserve, some redundancy. Here, by increasing the efficiency of processes, one can overdo it and cause some damage to reliability. This is a very fine line, and it is necessary to know how to balance," Vasily Vasilkov explained.

The company pays serious attention to improving the reliability of external energy saving scheme. The BAVR devices installed back in 2016 at TAIF-NK, designed to prevent equipment disconnection in the event of sudden voltage drawdowns in the external electrical network, to this day confirm the correctness of the decisions taken earlier.

“To date, it has allowed us to prevent 38 voltage drawdowns from the external electrical network. It is possible to calculate the total damage prevented — it amounted to about 1,7 billion rubles. But the company does not stand still, and in 2021 we continued to work in this direction and carried out the reconstruction of the guaranteed power supply system of production facilities, where uninterruptible power supplies for responsible consumers were additionally reserved. In the end, we received a multi-level redundancy scheme that allows us to exclude production shutdowns in case of any disturbances in the power supply system, including single failures of uninterruptible power supplies themselves," Maksim Novikov told about the achievements.

The increase in energy efficiency, together with other factors, has had a positive impact on the production and economic indicators of the enterprise. In 2021, TAIF-NK JSC tripled its budget allocations compared to 2020.

Products meeting international standards

The company also took advantage of the opportunity to once again demonstrate its extensive product line. TAIF-NK JSC produces more than 50 items of products in demand by the market: straight-run gasoline — raw materials for petrochemistry, summer and winter diesel fuel, Euro 5 motor gasoline, and since the previous year — Euro 6, liquefied petroleum gases, jet engine fuel, road bitumen, etc.

The high quality of the manufactured products is confirmed by both laboratory research data and numerous awards from various republican and federal competitions. On the very first day of the Tatarstan Energy Forum, TAIF-NK's piggy bank of achievements was replenished with another award — the company has become the winner of the republican competition for the best achievements in the field of energy conservation and energy efficiency improvement. Prime Minister of Tatarstan Aleksey Pesoshin handed over the diploma in the nomination “Fuel Industry” and a symbolic cup of the winner of the competition to the director general of TAIF-NK JSC, Maksim Novikov.