TOLL DISTILLING IN ROTTERDAM
Odfjell PID (Odfjell Petrochemical Industrial Distillation),
has existed since 1963 and is a business unit at the
large storage terminal at the 3rd Petroleum harbour.
The distillation plant currently operates three different
distillation units. Odfjell PID serves both the mineral oil and
the chemicals industry. The customer portfolio includes major
refineries and (petro)chemical companies as well as traders.
The main reason for erecting distillation columns back in
the 1960's was to decontaminate liquid bulk parcels on behalf
of the terminal's customers. "We're talking about an era when
tankers weren't as sophisticated as today - e.g. they didn't
have deep well pumps," says Piotr Skotnicki, General
Manager of Odfjell PID. "Consequently, products got
contaminated easily and frequently. PID was the answer to
these problems: they were the people to talk to when
products had to be brought back to specification."
Nowadays, salvage of contaminated products is only a
small part of Odfjell PID's order portfolio. Today, PID mostly
acts as an expansion of the production chain for the chemical
and mineral oil industry. PID offers stability and continuity to
the industry's operations, by upgrading feedstocks and
finishing end-products, and also processing, upgrading and
recycling of side-streams.
The distillation columns can be operated separately, parallel
or in series. This offers customers a wide spread of
possibilities: high purity separation, azeotropic, reactive or
extractive distillation, decolorizing and pre-fractioning.
In
order to create the maximum value for its customers, Odfjell
PID uses an R&D laboratory where test distillations can be
performed to determine how best to process the products.
"With more than 40 years of experience in toll distilling,
Odfjell PID offers a unique proposition to the industry," says
Skotnicki. And the company is there to stay: it has far
advanced plans to invest in a new distillation unit, enabling
deep vacuum distillation and larger throughputs.
