PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR HYDROCONVERSION OF HYDROCARBONS

• US 20180273860A1
• Filed: 11/04/2015
• Published: 09/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BP Corporation North America Incorporated (BP PLC)
• Original Assignee: BP Europa SE (BP PLC)
• Inventors: Schleiffer, Andreas, Ziegelaar, Paul M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,550,340 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 2300/1074 Vacuum distillates
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 2300/1077 Vacuum residues
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 2300/4081 Recycling aspects
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 2400/04 Diesel oil
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 2400/08 Jet fuel
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 47/26 suspended in the oil, e.g. slurries
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 65/10 including only cracking steps
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 65/12 including cracking steps and other hydrotreatment steps
• CPC Class Codes: C10G 67/02 plural serial stages only

Abstract

A refinery built around a slurry phase hydrocracking process unit, such as a Veba Combi-Cracker (VCC), is simpler, produces more liquid product as transportation fuels and has much higher net cash margin than a refinery built around a coker or other bottoms upgrading processes. The VCC unit replaces one or more processing steps normally included in refineries as separate and distinct processing units including heavy distillate/gas oil cracking and optionally bottoms upgrading and deep desulfurization of diesel and gasoline range cuts. The refinery design is especially suited for heavy crude upgrading and can be tuned to provide a wide range of gasoline to distillate production ratios. The refinery design is “bottomless” in the sense that it produces no heavy fuel oil or asphalt as product and no solid fuel (e.g., petroleum coke).

Claims

1. A process for the conversion of hydrocarbon comprising:

introducing a hydrocarbon feedstock into an atmospheric distillation unit to form products including straight run light distillate, straight run mid-distillate and atmospheric bottoms;

introducing the atmospheric bottoms into a vacuum distillation unit to form products including straight run vacuum gas oil and vacuum residue;

introducing the vacuum residue into a liquid phase or slurry phase first stage hydroconversion reactor in a slurry phase hydrocracking unit to form first stage reaction products;

introducing the first stage reaction products and the straight run vacuum gas oil into a second stage hydroprocessing reaction section in the slurry phase hydrocracking unit to thin second stage reaction products;

introducing the second stage reaction products into a fractionation unit to form recovered products including fuel gas, recovered naphtha, recovered mid-distillates and recovered unconverted vacuum gas oil; and

introducing at least a portion of the recovered unconverted vacuum gas oil as a recycle stream into the second stage hydroprocessing reaction section in the slurry phase hydrocracking unit, wherein the atmospheric distillation unit and the vacuum distillation unit produces no products that are introduced into a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit.

2. The process of claim 1, wherein substantially all of the recovered vacuum gas oil is introduced into the second stage hydroprocessing reaction section in the slurry phase hydrocracking unit.

3. The process of claim 1, further comprising introducing the straight run light distillate, the straight run mid-distillate, or both, with the straight run vacuum gas oil into the second stage hydroprocessing reaction section in the slurry phase hydrocracking unit.

4. The process of claim 1, further comprising introducing the straight run light distillate, the straight run mid-distillate or both into a hydrotreating reactor to form hydrotreated products, and introducing the hydrotreated products into the fractionation unit.

5. The process of claim 4, further comprising introducing the second stage reaction products into the hydrotreating reactor with the straight run mid-distillate to form combined hydrotreated products, and introducing the combined hydrotreated products into the fractionation unit.

6. The process of claim 1, further comprising introducing the recovered vacuum gas oil into a hydroconversion reactor, and combining the effluent from the hydroconversion reactor with the second stage reaction products.

7. The process of claim 1, wherein the atmospheric distillation unit and the vacuum distillation unit produces no products that are introduced into a coking unit.

8. The process of claim 1, wherein the atmospheric distillation unit and the vacuum distillation unit produces no products that are introduced into a standalone gas oil hydrocracking unit.

9. The process of claim 1, with the proviso that the process does not include a fluid catalytic cracking unit.

10. The process of claim 1, wherein the straight run mid-distillate is not introduced into a mid-distillates hydrotreating unit.

11. The process of claim 1, wherein no heavy fuel oil and no asphalt is produced as a product.

12. The process of claim 1, wherein no petroleum coke is produced as a product.

13. The process of claim 1, wherein the recovered products comprise a liquid yield of more than 80%, preferably more than 85%, relative to the amount of atmospheric bottoms.

14. The process of claim 1, wherein the recovered products comprise a carbon retention of more than 85%, preferably more than 90%, relative to the amount of carbon in the atmospheric bottoms.

15. The process of claim 1, wherein the hydrocarbon feedstock comprises a heavy crude oil comprising a specific gravity of 0.86 or more, or preferably a specific gravity of 0.88 or more.

16. An integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus for producing a light distillate product, such as naphtha, and a mid-distillate product, such as diesel, the apparatus comprising:

an atmospheric distillation unit;

a vacuum distillation unit receiving a first feedstream from the atmospheric distillation unit;

a slurry phase hydrocracking unit receiving a second feedstream from the vacuum distillation unit and a third feedstream from the atmospheric distillation unit; and

a fractionation unit receiving a fourth feedstream comprising a product from the slurry phase hydrocracking unit, and producing products including a naphtha product, a diesel product;

with the proviso that the refinery apparatus does not include a fluid catalytic cracking unit.

17. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 16, with the proviso that the refinery apparatus does not include a standalone gas oil hydrocracking unit.

18. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 16 or 17, with the proviso that the refinery apparatus does not include a standalone naphtha hydrotreating unit.

19. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 16, with the proviso that the refinery apparatus does not include a standalone diesel hydrotreating unit.

20. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 16, wherein the slurry phase hydrocracking unit comprises a first stage hydroconversion slurry reaction section in communication with a second stage hydroprocessing reaction section including a second stage hydrocracking reactor section and a second stage hydrotreating reactor section, wherein the first stage hydroconversion slurry reaction section receives the second feedstream and the second stage hydroprocessing reaction section receives the third feedstream.

21. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 20, wherein the fractionation unit includes a product stream in recycle communication with the second stage hydrocracking reactor section.

22. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 20, wherein the second stage hydroprocessing reaction section receives a fourth feedstream from the vacuum distillation unit.

23. The integrated hydrocarbon refinery apparatus of claim 20, wherein the slurry phase hydrocracking unit further comprises the second stage hydrotreating reactor section in communication with the fractionation unit, the second stage hydrotreating reactor section receiving a fourth feedstream from the atmospheric distillation unit and the effluent from the second stage hydrocracking reactor section.