Intercriteria Analysis to Diagnose the Reasons for Increased Fouling in a Commercial Ebullated Bed Vacuum Residue Hydrocracker.

The intercriteria analysis developed on the base of intuitionistic fuzziness and index matrices was applied to evaluate processing data of the LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas H-Oil ebullated bed vacuum residue hydrocracker with the aim of revealing the reasons for increased fouling registered during the 3rd cycle of the H-Oil hydrocracker. It was found that when the ratio of the ΔT of the 1st reactor to the ΔT of the 2nd reactor gets lower than 2.0, an excessive H-Oil equipment fouling occurs. The fouling was also found to be favored by processing of lower Conradson carbon content vacuum residual oils and increased throughput and depressed by increasing the dosage of the HCAT nanodispersed catalyst. The fouling in the atmospheric tower bottom section is facilitated by a lower aromatic content in the atmospheric tower bottom product. The addition of FCC slurry oil not only increases aromatic content but also dissolves some of the asphaltenes in the atmospheric residual hydrocracked oil and decreases its colloidal instability index. The fouling in the vacuum tower bottom section is facilitated by a higher saturate content in the VTB. Surprisingly, it was found that the asphaltene content in the VTB depresses the fouling rate. No relation was found of the sediment content in the hydrocracked residual oils measured by hot filtration tests and by the centrifuge method to the equipment fouling of the H-Oil hydrocracker.

Role of Catalyst in Optimizing Fluid Catalytic Cracking Performance During Cracking of H-Oil-Derived Gas Oils.

Three H-Oil gas oils, heavy atmospheric gas oil (HAGO), light vacuum gas oil (LVGO), heavy vacuum gas oil (HVGO), and two their blends with hydrotreated straight run vacuum gas oils (HTSRVGOs) were cracked on two high unit cell size (UCS) lower porosity commercial catalysts and two low UCS higher porosity commercial catalysts. The cracking experiments were performed in an advanced cracking evaluation fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) laboratory unit at 527 °C, 30 s catalyst time on stream, and catalyst-to-oil (CTO) variation between 3.5 and 7.5 wt/wt The two high UCS lower porosity catalysts were more active and more coke selective. However, the difference between conversion of the more active high UCS lower porosity and low UCS higher porosity catalysts at 7.5 wt/wt CTO decreased in the order 10% (HAGO) > 9% (LVGO) > 6% (HVGO) > 4% (80% HTSRVGO/20% H-Oil VGO). Therefore, the catalyst performance is feedstock-dependent. The four studied catalysts along with a blend of one of them with 2% ZSM-5 were examined in a commercially revamped UOP FCC VSS unit. The lower UCS higher porosity catalysts exhibited operation at a higher CTO ratio achieving a similar conversion level with more active higher UCS lower porosity catalysts. However, the higher UCS lower porosity catalysts made 0.67% Δ coke that was higher than the maximum acceptable limit of 0.64% for this particular commercial FCC unit (FCCU), which required excluding the HVGO from the FCC feed blend. The catalyst system containing ZSM-5 increased the LPG yield but did not have an impact on gasoline octane. It was found that the predominant factor that controls refinery profitability related to the FCCU performance is the FCC slurry oil (bottoms) yield.

Commercial Investigation of the Ebullated-Bed Vacuum Residue Hydrocracking in the Conversion Range of 55-93.

The LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas vacuum residue hydrocracking has increased the vacuum residue conversion from 55 to 93% as a result of a proper feed selection, optimal catalyst condition, and the use of a Mo nanodispersed catalyst. It was found that the feed colloidal instability index estimated from the feed saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes (SARA) data negatively correlated with the conversion. Correlations based on the use of the nonlinear least-squares method, which relates the density to the aromatic structure contents for the straight run and hydrocracked vacuum residues, were developed. Intercriteria analysis was applied to evaluate the relations between the different properties of the straight run and the hydrocracked vacuum residual oils. The density of the hydrocracked vacuum residue measured by dilution with toluene was found to strongly correlate with the conversion, Conradson carbon content, softening point, and Fraasss breaking point.