Steam consumption is an essential indicator of successful operation of petrochemical plants as energy costs are increasing since decades. In Europe, almost all big petrochemical companies try to reduce their operation costs by running the distillation column under low vacuum and by reducing steam consumption in their plants.

GEA offers efficient steam vacuum units and has spent time and money at his R&D test bench in Karlsruhe, examining almost all the ejectors they manufacture. These results in a huge data base which allows GEA to improve the mechanical design of the ejectors in terms of lower steam consumption.

GEA verified in several revamping studies on existing vacuum units that:

• by using GEA ejectors the consumption conditions are being improved although existing condensers are in further use.
• the new ejector design allows savings on operation costs and reaching payback time less than 2 years.
• the significant reduction of steam and thus the CO₂ Footprint often allows a smart financing of the revamping.

GEA has recently received an order for revamping an existing vacuum unit in Spanish refinery, because significant steam reductions were reached.