Analysis of Production Loss in Ammonia and Urea Plants during 2017-2020

摘要

Continuous operation is important for ammonia and urea plants for achieving high on stream and energy efficiency.Plant operation could be affected due to both internal and external problems.The internal or plant related problems could be due to mechanical,instrumentation,electrical,process and other reasons.The external problems can be shortage of raw materials,non-availability of utilities,labour issues and adverse market conditions.In order to assess the reliability of plant operation,FAI has been carrying out the downtime analysis of ammonia and urea plants every three years.Data on planned and forced shutdown due to various reasons are collected and detailed plant section-wise analysis is carried out.The present article gives the analysis for the period of April 2017 to March 2020 for 29 ammonia and 30 urea plants.These plants achieved on-stream days of 329.4 days for ammonia and 325.5 days for urea.There has been an increase in mechanical problems resulting in lower on-stream days compared to previous three years'period.The production loss on account of factors external to the plants were also significant during the period.There was loss of production of about 2.0 million tonnes(Mts)ammonia and 3.6 Mts urea for the entire survey period.