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Mild hydrocracking of FCC feeds yields more fuels, boosts margins - Oil & Gas Journal
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Treatment options
Treating the feedstock or product streams from an FCC can lower a fuel's sulfur content. With pretreatment, a typical vacuum distillate hydrodesulfurizer reduces sulfur, nitrogen, and aromatics in the FCC feed. FCC feed pretreatment is more cost effective for reducing sulfur in naphtha and diesel products. Adding hydrogen to the FCC feed can increase conversion and light distillate yield due to increased saturates content. Feed pretreatment can also reduce coke yield by saturating the polyaromatic hydrocarbons to decrease the coke precursors. Click here to enlarge image
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Mild hydrocracking of FCC feeds yields more fuels, boosts margins - Oil & Gas Journal
About 90-95% of the feed sulfur is removed; resulting products from FCC unit are low in sulfur. Another benefit of increased conversion due to pretreatment is lower light cycle oil (LCO) production. LCO degrades diesel pool quality.2
Hydrotreating the FCC feed can also decrease clarified oil yield due to added hydrogen. A significant benefit with additional hydrogen in the feed is a shift in yield pattern, which gives higher production of transportation fuel and decreased production of fuel oil and coke. Several post-treatment technologies are based on hydrodesulfurization (HDS), fractionation, catalytic distillation, and adsorption. Besides these, posttreatment requires multiple process optionsnaphtha treating, LCO treating, and flue gas treating-to control SOx emissions. Product treatment, however, offers no yield benefits. Olefin saturation and the resultant octane loss is critical when a refiner hydrodesulfurizes FCC naphtha.
Although this option improves FCC feed quality to a great extent, it does not produce any additional fuels. Severe operating conditions are needed to produce quality FCC products due to changing product specifications. Highseverity conditions result in shorter run lengths, require frequent catalyst changeouts, and make the option uneconomical. Unconverted oils from hydrocrackers are an excellent feedstock for FCC units because they have low sulfur, nitrogen, aromatics, metals and carbon residues. This option improves FCC feed quality and also produces required additional
Conventional hydrocracking processes are designed and operated for pressures around 150-170 bar. This leads to high investment costs due to high-pressure equipment. Operating costs are also higher due to high hydrogen production and compression costs and utility requirements. Refiners with hydrocracker facilities can readily use this option. Installing a dedicated hydrocracker unit to feed an FCC unit is cost intensive and economically unattractive. Refiners have tried to convert existing VGO hydrotreating units into MHC units because high-conversion hydrocracking units are expensive. MHC units use moderate operating conditions compared to conventional hydrocrackers. Operating at lower pressures significantly reduces capital investment and operating costs. Click here to enlarge image
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Mild hydrocracking of FCC feeds yields more fuels, boosts margins - Oil & Gas Journal
The MHC unit operates at 50-100 bar pressure, 340-425 C. reactor temperature, and 350-1,000 volumetric H2oil ratios. Existing VGO hydrotreating units operate in this range and can easily convert to MHC operations. Specially designed acidic MHC catalysts combined with changes in operating strategy will allow the conversion of a hydrotreater to MHC. Production of low-boiling hydrocarbons in an MHC produces additional fuels and improves the FCC feed quality. Figs. 1 and 2 show flow diagrams for hydroprocessing and MHC.
Click here to enlarge image Removing nitrogen (especially basic) from the feed also contributed to higher FCC conversions. FCC products should have low sulfur levels because more than 95 wt % of the sulfur was removed during MHC step. A low-sulfur FCC feed can also reduce SOx emissions from the FCC regenerator, which helps meet emission standards. Table 3 shows that the FCC yield pattern shifts towards more fuels and less coke and residue during use of hydrotreated or MHC feed. Fig. 3 presents integrated product yields from HDTFCC and MHC-FCC combinations. Overall yields based on fresh VGO feed also shift towards more gasoline and diesel compared to the untreated case. Click here to enlarge image
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Mild hydrocracking of FCC feeds yields more fuels, boosts margins - Oil & Gas Journal
VGO hydrotreating generates additional annual revenues of $5.5 million compared to untreated case. MHC of VGO at 100 bar and feeding 370+ C. to the FCC unit results in additional annual revenues of $10.9 million compared to untreated case. These benefits arise because up to 20% more VGO can be upgraded to valuable fuels through MHC route. For a refinery with a larger FCC unit, the potential benefits will be much higher.
References
1. Debuisschert, Q., and Nocca, J.-L., "Benzene and sulfur reduction strategies for the gasoline pool," XI Refinery Technology Meeting, Feb. 9-11, 2000, Hyderabad, India. 2. Shorey, S.W., Lomas, D.A., and Keesom, W.H., "Use FCC feed pretreating methods to remove sulfur," Hydrocarbon Processing, November 1999, pp. 43-51.
The authors
M. Bhaskar is a manager at the research and development center of Chennai Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Chennai, India. Bhaskar holds a B.Tech. in chemical engineering from Andhra University College of Engineering, Vizag, India, and an M.Tech. in petroleum refining and petrochemicals from Anna University, Chennai. Click here toG. Valavarasu is a senior engineer at the research and development center of Chennai enlarge Petroleum. He holds a B.Tech. in chemical engineering from Coimbatore Institute of image Technology, Coimbatore, India, and an M.Tech. in petroleum refining and petrochemicals from Anna University, Chennai. K.S. Balaraman is general manager at the research and development center of Chennai Petroleum. Click here to Balaraman holds a MS from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and a PhD from the Indian Institute enlarge of Technology, Bombay. He is a life member of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, India. image Click here to enlarge
Fuel-quality trends
image Refiners are facing dual challenges of more stringent environmental regulations and changing product demand patterns. Countries are enacting new regulations to improve automotive fuel quality.
Changing diesel fuel specifications will demand lower sulfur and higher cetane numbers. The most common worldwide diesel sulfur specification is 500 ppm. Many countries, however, are revising this sulfur specification to comply with the newer environmental regulations. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a diesel sulfur target of 15 ppm by 2006. The European Union (EU) similarly indicated a specification of 50 ppm by 2005. Other countries are also contemplating sulfur specifications in-line with US and EU. Countries are also upgrading gasoline quality with respect to sulfur, aromatics, benzene, etc. Similar to EPA regulations, the maximum gasoline sulfur content will be restricted to a maximum of 80 ppm in 2005. Automotive fuel demand will maintain steady growth. Demand projections for refined products indicate that middle distillates grow at the highest rate. Worldwide diesel fuel demand will experience annual growth of 2.3%.1 In contrast, the demand for fuel oil will decline. Refiners are evaluating different process options and optimizing resources to maximize fuels that meet revised specifications and reduce the bottom of the barrel. The FCC unit allows refiners to maximize yield of fuels and convert bottoms. In view of the changing scenario, refiners must carefully consider FCC products as part of their sulfur management strategies.
Reference
1. Chen, Q., van den Oosterkamp, P., and Barendregt, S., "Upgrading gasoils by mild hydrocracking," Petroleum Technology Quarterly, June 1999.
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