Technological improvement in the drainage of Jet A-1 turbo fuel tanks to reduce contaminants in residuals from the Cienfuegos S.A Refinery

Abstract

The Jet A-1 turbo is the fuel par excellence used for civil or commercial aviation and is governed internationally by the standard (Defence 91-091, 2023), agreed by the Civil Aviation Authority of the United Kingdom. Its price in the Caribbean market is 70,85 USD/Bl. As established by the standards, this product, after settling for 4 hours in the storage tanks, all tanks must be drained in the morning, before carrying out any type of operation. However, the current drainage system for the Jet A-1 turbo fuel tanks generates economic losses and a series of contaminants, which negatively impact the treatment of the wastewater. In this sense, the objective of this work is to propose a closed system for the drainage of the Jet A-1 turbo fuel tanks at the Cienfuegos S.A.
Refinery that reduces economic losses and its environmental impact. Three technological variants of operation are presented for the system studied and are comprehensively evaluated using simulation software PipePhase v7 and dynamic profitability indicators are calculated in an economic and environmental evaluation to provide the best criteria for decision making. As a result, the V2 and V3 variants are economically feasible since their recovery period ranges between 0,73 – 1,66 years. Only the V3 variant makes the turbo drainingprocess sustainable. Using the Discrete Multicriteria Decision method, the experts decide to continue exploiting the V2 variant.