Modeling and analysis of oil shale refinery process with the indirectly heated moving bed

Abstract

China is rich of oil shale as one of alternative fossil energy resources. The exploitation and utilization of oil shale are strategically important in alleviating the shortage of oil and gas resources in China. However, low utilization rate of raw material, low oil yield, and high content of heavy components in the oil are the main problems in current Fushun type oil shale refinery technology. An indirectly heated moving bed is developed to de-bottleneck Fushun type technology. The oil shale refinery process with the indirectly heated moving bed is modeled and simulated in this work. Based on the simulation, a techno-economic analysis is performed and compared with the conventional Fushun oil shale refinery process. Results show that: for a shale refinery of 3.0 Mt/y scale, 375 t/h oil shale retorting requires 149.6 MW of heat, in which 60% of the heat is produced by combustion of the oil shale pyrolysis gas, while remaining 40% from the coal gasified gas. In consideration of investment and operation, the cost of product shale oil of the new process is 2636 CNY/t, which is 12% lower than that of the conventional Fushun refinery process. This benefit comes from higher utilization of raw material and oil yield of the new process. The competitive crude oil price of the indirectly heated moving bed refinery process is about 51 $/bbl, while that of the Fushun refinery process is 58 $/bbl. During 2017 year, the crude oil price fluctuates at around 50 $/bbl, thus the new indirectly heated moving bed refinery process shows better economic competitiveness.