Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology - Chapter 790

Chapter 790: 200,000 Litre Crude oil Refineries (2/2)
With all things considered, Vijay chose Jamnagar once again for the western refinery for all the previously mentioned advantages. But for the eastern refinery, he chose Chittagong. Apart from the previously mentioned advantages, it is a major port, historically having ties with several Chinese trading cities, and finally, the crude oil resources would find a lot of users in the textile and industrial bases in Bengal that would be propped up in the near future, along with having trade routes with Tibet and Central Asia.

Vijay arrived at the outskirts of Chittagong, where he had bought the whole region of 500 kilometres, keeping the expansion of the refinery as well as establishing a net of supporting companies in the near future in mind.

Rana Bhatia, the manager Baskaracharya chose for the Raya Petroleum Company, immediately ran forward and respectfully greeted Vijay, who had just gotten down from the carriage.

Vijay looked at the young man and nodded. He remembered his resume. Rana Bhatia is a graduate of the Bharatiya Institute of Technology in the Department of Biology. After he graduated, he joined the Bhupathi Pharmaceutical Company and worked as a factory manager for a few years. Vijay had the impression that the young man had actually improved the efficiency of the factory he was in charge of by 30% by pioneering a mechanized storage and logistics system, where storing manufactured medicines and shipping them off were made extremely easy, very close to the warehouse management model in Vijay’s previous life.

Vijay talked with him for a few words, after which he asked him to bring over the engineers.

For the last few months, although he had not been directly involved in the construction of the refinery, he had not completely ignored it. In his free time, not only did he design the factories for both the eastern and western refineries, but he also designed the equipment and ordered Venkatapathi’s Scientific and Sri Ranga Industrial Tools to custom-build it for him. He had not directly visited either Chittagong or Jamnagar, so his designs could not be too accurate. Therefore, he made the designs in modules so that the facilities could be built by the engineers who were at the location and installed wherever it was convenient. Even the equipment—he had not asked anyone to install it since he needed to inspect the facilities himself.

So when he got to Chittagong, the buildings had already been constructed, only waiting for him to install the equipment.

Soon, four middle-aged engineers with orange hats showed up in front of him.

Vijay quickly took over their resumes from Rana Bhatia and understood their qualifications. He was satisfied seeing that all four engineers had plenty of experience working in various dye production plants.

Thinking about the equipment needed before installation, he quickly asked,

“Settling tanks, furnace, coal storage bay, still units, pipes, condensation tanks, water tanks, Pillai-Reddy thermometers—are they all ready?”

One of the engineers stepped forward and nodded, “Yes, Your Majesty. A total of four settling tanks, each with a capacity of 50,000 litres, 4 stills, 2 each for primary and secondary distillation and two separate cooling and condensation systems are all ready. The water pools have been dug, the coal storage area has been built, and coal has already been bought and is ready to be used, while the furnaces and thermometers are also prepared for operation.”

With everything ready, Vijay toured the facility, looking for the buildings that he had designed.

Four tall pillars, around 10 meters in height, stood prominently in the facility. What’s more, right next to them was a crane system very similar to the ones used for unloading and loading containers, but this one looked smaller. Seeing them, Vijay’s eyes lit up.

“Install the settling tanks on top of those four pillars.”

“Use the crane system to bring up the barrels and unload their contents into the settling tanks.”

Moving on, he noticed two other pillars at a height of only 8 meters, but the middle part of these pillars was empty.

“Install the furnaces in the gaps in those pillars and install the first distillation stills on top.”

Vijay stood on top of the stairs leading up to the gap between the pillars and looked around. Something below caught his eye—he immediately noticed a square hole around five meters in depth and 10 meters in both length and breadth.

“Attach the pipe from the distillation stills to the pit.”

“That’s the place where heavy oil and tar will be collected. Have the carriages custom-built to carry the tar and heavy oil.”

Vijay looked around inside the hole where he was standing on and ordered, “Line it with refractory bricks. Temperatures are going to reach up to 200 degrees Celsius in here.”

Moving on, he came across two different pillars, their height not too different from the previous ones but slightly lower—these were 7.5 meters in height.

“Install the condensation unit on top of this pillar. As for the water,” he looked around and noticed a tank a few meters away.

“Connect the tank to the condenser unit here.”

He gestured with his hand.

“Pump the freshwater from the Karnaphuli River to fill up the tank.”

Vijay knew that there was another freshwater source nearby called Bhadalpura Lake, but using lake water was more wasteful than using river water, so he stuck with the river.

He looked at a building below that seemed to be isolated from the other facilities.

He pointed at it and looked at the engineers with a serious expression, “That is the naphtha tank. Attach an airtight pipe from the condenser to the tank. Be careful during transportation; naphtha is very volatile.”

The engineers nodded with sombre expressions,

Vijay moved forward and continued to explain the installation of two other modules: the second distillation module and the second condenser module.

In total, his refining method had five different modules, all built in descending order of height. Even though he could have constructed the refinery on flat ground, that would have required many people to move the liquids from one container to another. Even if he used a steam engine to move the liquid, it would add one more variable that he did not need since he was dealing with volatile gases and liquids. So he chose to let gravity do the work. Not to mention, the refinery was located very close to the ocean, only a few dozen meters away. Building the refinery at an elevated height could also protect against harsh waves and small-scale tsunamis.

“Have you all written everything down?” Vijay inquired.

The engineers immediately nodded and showed him the sketches and notes they had taken. Glancing over them quickly, he smiled with satisfaction,

“All right, start the installation.”

Vijay ordered. He only stayed back in Chittagong for two days until the core parts were installed, after which he set off to Jamnagar to repeat the process once more.

The main products that would be extracted through the refining process were kerosene, naphtha, heavy oil, and fuel oil, all of which had numerous uses. Kerosene was self-explanatory, as it could be used for lighting and heating. Fuel oil was a heavier oil that contained more impurities, but it could still be used for burning furnaces in industrial applications. Heavy oil, a byproduct obtained at a very early stage, contained the most impurities, even more than fuel oil. However, it had its uses as well, as it could be used as a lubricant in machinery, carts, and even steam engines to keep the lever mechanism functioning properly for a long time. Heavy oil was commonly found with tar, which could be used as a coating agent or in road construction.

Finally, naphtha was the most volatile byproduct of his refining process, but it also had the most variety of uses. For example, in fuel and energy, it could still be used as lamp fuel, though it was less stable. What excited Vijay more was that it could be used in early combustion engines. He could remember that it was naphtha that had been used in the early Otto engines.

It could also be used in fire starters and incendiaries or in portable heating and cooking.

Industrially and chemically, it could be used as a solvent for cleaning, paint and varnish thinner, rubber, or resin extraction agent. It could also be used in the textile industry.

If naphtha was mixed with nitric acid, it produced explosive compounds. If it was mixed with other fuels, it could improve combustion. If it was mixed with resins or oils, it could be used to produce a primitive version of incendiary gel. It could even be used to manufacture flamethrowers.

That’s not all—naphtha was also a very good waterproofing agent. It could be used to coat wood, leather, and clothes to make them waterproof. What’s more, when naphtha was burned, it produced thick smoke, making it useful for producing smoke bombs for concealment.

Thinking about all this, Vijay smiled cheerfully.

The refinery he had designed was no less impactful on the empire than the atmospheric steam engine or the machine tools that he had invented.

The oil refining method he set up was very similar to Lukasiewicz’s method, but the only change was that he used Devaraya’s steam engine to extract crude oil from the ground instead of the manual bucket extraction Lukasiewicz had used. What’s more, he used gravity to transport the liquid and byproducts, thereby making the process more efficient and requiring less manpower.

P.S. Thankyou, Ron_Blackwood for x2 Pizzas and x4 Ice colas

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DAMN!!!