In oil refineries energy costs represent about half the operating costs of the process. As such the focus of this industry is on energy recovery so as to achieve a reduction in operating costs while simultaneously minimizing environmental impact.

Plate heat exchangers are pieces of equipment that are widely used in oil refineries especially in centralized cooling systems often using seawater as the cooling agent. These systems are of particular importance in large industrial plants to centralize the cooling water in a closed circuit thereby placing all the problems associated to corrosion and cleaning within the circuit of the plate heat exchanger.

This equipment is checkable and versatile thus facilitating maintenance intervention.