Abstract: The startup of a 1.5 Mt/a delayed coking unit using viscous crude oil as feed was performed twice in the Karamay Petrochemical Company successfully. The operation results showed that this startup was an energy saving and environmental friendly operation scheme, e.g. the startup time was 23h shorter than that of usual startup, 500t of gas oil was saved and zero waste-oil discharge was realized.

Key words: delayed coking, crude oil, startup, energy conservation, environmental protection