Abstract

Oil is a finite and scarce resource and it should therefore be used to the maximum extent possible to produce the high value "light" products for which it is still irreplaceable.

Today's world refining industry, however, still produces by-products (petcoke or heavy fuel oil) at an average level of about 30 percent of the crude oil feedstock. In the near future, increased refinery deep conversion capacity has the potential to provide major benefits in meeting the increasing demand for light products with the environmental requirements thus optimising the use of a more and more valuable resource.

The Eni Slurry Technology (EST) offers an attractive solution to maximise the heavy oil conversion to distillates limiting the by-product production to less than 2 percent. This result is achieved by integrating a slurry hydrocracking with a solvent deasphalting and handling these units in order to get a proper control of the asphaltene stability during the conversion process.

The technical feasibility of this configuration, that overcomes the limit of the traditional thermal and hydrothermal conversion technologies (i.e. product stability), has been demonstrated by operating on a continuous pilot plant reproducing the whole process scheme. Very high conversion and extremely good product upgrading were obtained prolonging the run for several weeks in steady-state situation.

Introduction

The Refining Industry will undergo in the next years major changes due to following reasons: to meet the growing market demand for cleaner light and middle distillates, to face the declining demand for heavy fuel oil, to meet the tighter specifications for gasoline and diesel oil, to reduce the sulfur content in the fuel oil and to take in due consideration the increasing delta price between light and heavy crude oils1–2. On the other side economic and strategic reasons will promote the utilization of the huge reserves of heavy residues and oil sands bitumen.

The proven reserves of extra-heavy crude oils in the Orinoco Belt exceed 100 billion bbls; in Canada the estimated recoverable oil reserves from the oil sands bitumen are in excess of 300 billion bbls. Similarly, Mexico is addressing new efforts to increase the utilization of the Maya Crude from its huge reservoir.

In summary the Refiners have to face the following challenges for the coming years: BLOCK 2 - - FORUM 10 331

UPGRADING PETROLEUM RESIDUES WITH EST PROCESS

  • to minimize fuel oil production, while reducing at the same time its sulfur and other pollutants (nitrogen, metals) content. In this context, the fuel oil may be replaced by natural gas which generates lower amounts of CO2;

  • to develop new technologies to suitably upgrade the heavy and extra-heavy crudes.

As a matter of fact, the firing of fuel oil in the Power Plants will cause s

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