Abstract
In recent years, there has been a trend in the global oil industry to improve the proportion of heavy high-sulfur crude oils in the total volume of extracted and processed resources, reserves of which are estimated at over 800 billion metric tons. Therefore, the main line of oil refining is processing of heavy crudes and residua to allow maximum use of the hydrocarbon potential and yield of high-margin products. Hydrogenation processes of heavy raw materials are most attractive in terms of product quality. This article analyzes tar hydrocracking processes that are either in operation or at the stage of full-scale testing. These include Veba Combi-Cracker (VCC), Uniflex, suspended-bed catalyst hydrocracking (ENI), and vacuum residue hydroconversion (TIPS RAS). These technologies use heterogeneous catalysts and are designed to obtain the largest possible amount of liquid products. This article discusses the features of each technology, highlights their advantages and disadvantages, shows the main approaches to process management, and speculates about the development of these technologies. Tar refining is a major process in heavy oil upgrading, and the development of efficient tar-processing methods will influence refinery configurations and management.
Highlights
In recent years, there has been a trend in the global oil industry to improve the proportion of heavy high-sulfur crude oils in the total volume of extracted and processed resources, reserves of which are estimated at over 800 billion metric tons
Yield of light oil products and petrochemical feed can be achieved by wide involvement of heavy residual fractions in refining, including naphtha residue, vacuum residue, and gas/oil fractions [3,4]
Physicochemical characteristics of heavy oil stock make its production, transportation, and subsequent refining rather difficult. These processes should be based on the breakage of CC, C-S, C-N bonds and hydrogenation of resulting radical fragments, ensuring destruction of heavy organic stock leading to gasoline, average distillate, and gas oil fractioning with higher hydrogen/carbon ratio (H/C)
Summary
A growing share of heavy crude in the total volume of extractive raw materials of low-gas oil and light-fractions content, the necessity for crude upgrading to a minimum. Physicochemical characteristics of heavy oil stock make its production, transportation, and subsequent refining rather difficult These processes should be based on the breakage of CC, C-S, C-N bonds and hydrogenation of resulting radical fragments, ensuring destruction of heavy organic stock leading to gasoline, average distillate, and gas oil fractioning with higher hydrogen/carbon ratio (H/C). Irreversible deactivation of conventional heterogeneous catalysts by metalcontaining and heteroatomic compounds present in the feedstock requires the development and application of brand-new catalytic systems They include nanosized or ultradispersed fractions stabilized in an organic medium and formed from catalyst precursors in hydrocarbon medium. The strategy of leading Western refiners of heavy residual oil stock is mainly based on hydrogenation technologies They are: LC-Fining (Chevron Lummus Global) [14], H-Oil (Axens), EST (Eni) [15], HRS development—Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis. These processes make it possible to obtain target distillate fractions from heavy viscous raw oils and residual feedstock
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