Impact of H-Oil vacuum residue hydrocracking severity on fluid catalytic cracking unit performance

Abstract

The performance of both ebullated bed H-Oil vacuum residue (VR) hydrocracking and fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) of vacuum gas oils (VGO) is interrelated. The increase of H-Oil unit reaction temperature maximizes VR conversion and augments the aromaticity and density of the hydrocracked heavy oils. The FCC of VGO blends that contain more aromatic H-Oil VGOs is featured by a lower VGO conversion. It was found in this study that the reactivity of the H-Oil heavy oils depends on their molecular weight (T50) instead on their aromatics content as observed during catalytic cracking of straight run VGOs reported in other studies.