Hydroprocessing upgrades to meet

changing fuels requirements

Adapting installed hydroprocessing units through a variety of schemes enables
refiners to shift their fuels slates to meet changing demand and specifications

Jay Parekh and Harjeet Virdi Chevron Lummus Global

R
efiners have to think creatively in order to from zero to more than 40% (with a decrease in
meet specifications and develop projects naphtha and jet yields).
that are profitable, with returns on invest- The inherent advantage of a hydrocracker is
ment that are subject to a higher level of scrutiny the ability to shift the yield selectivity of the
in view of restrictions on capex. Light-heavy operation with a shift in the recycle cut point
crude differentials have recently eroded, but the (RCP), which is defined as the cut point between
expectation is that the differentials will the heaviest product and the unconverted oil. By
recover and encourage the development of increasing the recycle cut point, more distillate
projects that meet fuels regulations with some products can be recovered in the intermediate
bottom of the barrel conversion to light prod- distillation section and less unconverted oil is
ucts. There also appears to be momentum in the sent to the second stage for further conversion.
marketplace to increase diesel production, in the The end result is less workload on the catalyst
US in particular, with an expected increase in and a reduction in chemical hydrogen consump-
the use of diesel-powered engines for personal tion, with less overall cracking to naphtha as well
vehicles. as a reduction in light ends make. This enables a
Revamps of existing units can provide the refiner to increase feed rates while maintaining
refiner with the ability to generate high returns catalyst life, without having to debottleneck the
on restricted capital investments. Chevron gas recovery section of the plant. It results in a
Lummus Global (CLG) has debottlenecked and reduction in hydrogen demand, which fosters
revamped a number of hydro-processing units straightforward debottlenecking to achieve
to meet changes in fuels regulations and feed- higher throughput.
stocks, achieve capacity increases and increase Since the unit was originally designed to co-
the output of light products. This article produce naphtha and jet, a revamp to introduce
discusses four revamp configurations in all areas diesel selectivity requires modifications to the
of hydroprocessing technology, some of which existing fractionator in order to “lift” the level of
have been fully implemented and others at vari- diesel product. However, the ability to add
ous stages of project execution. another product draw is limited by the size of
the column and the available reboiler duty.
Conversion from gasoline/jet to diesel Therefore, an additional vacuum column must
An Isocracking licensee operating a two-stage be added downstream of the fractionator to pull
with recycle (TSR) configuration hydrocracker diesel product to a 350°C cut point. An addi-
with intermediate distillation has commis-sioned tional heater is not required. Figure 1 shows a
a revamp to expand unit capacity and shift the schematic of the TSR unit with the addition of
mode of operation from naphtha production to a the vacuum column. The remainder of the unit’s
distillate-selective operation. The objective of the debottleneck involves modification of the recycle
revamp is to increase the nominal feed rate to compressor, feed pumps and other minor capital
the unit by 20% and to increase the diesel yield expenditures on the heat exchange train. This

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000222 Revamps 2009 1

 sink for the first stage, reducing
-AKE UP
demand for first-stage quench gas
HYDROGEN by up to 40%
• Excess hydrogen from the
second stage is used to supplement
&RESHFEED the gas-to-oil requirement for the
#n
2ECYCLE
first stage
GAS • The overall recycle gas compres-
sor load is reduced typically by up
,IGHT
NAPHTHA to 70%
(EAVY • Only one reactor furnace is
NAPHTHA
+EROSENE
required.
.EWVACUUM
STSTAGE COLUMN
PRODUCT
$IESEL SSRS revamp
The economics of a high-pressure
NDSTAGEPRODUCT
hydroprocessing revamp are largely
influenced by the recycle gas
compressor costs. The SSRS flow
scheme imposes a small incremen-
Figure 1 Two-stage recycle (TSR) with vacuum column for diesel recovery tal load on the recycle gas
compressor. This is fairly intuitive
revamp project is currently in detail engineering, for consideration of a SSOT or SSREC revamp of
with an expected startup date in 2012. a two-stage unit, but less intuitive for a TSR
revamp. In the TSR configuration, a guard bed is
Two-stage hydrocracker revamp added to the first stage, and an additional first-
In the mid-1990s, a licensee originally commis- stage reactor is added between the second-stage
sioned a TSR unit with selectivity towards middle effluent and the product fractionator. The guard
distillates. The refiner was evaluating a project bed is added to increase demetallation and the
to increase unit capacity and extend run length overall volume of the first-stage reactor to extend
significantly. A traditional revamp would neces- the length of the catalyst run. The unit (pre-
sitate additional reactor volume and revamp) is currently running at 133% of original
modifications to the recycle gas compressor. design capacity. The addition of two new reac-
However, a novel solution, using a process tors will enable the refiner to increase the unit’s
recently commercialised by CLG called single- throughput by another 42%, for a total of 175%
stage reverse sequencing (SSRS), would enable of original design. The revamp will also extend
the company to achieve its goals with substan- the run length by 30%. This will provide a 228%
tially less capital expenditure. increase in processed barrels per catalyst fill,
Like a TSR unit, SSRS takes advantage of a compared to the original design, and will be
clean second-stage environment, with overall achieved using the existing recycle gas
rate constants much greater than the rate compressor.
constants from the first stage. This second-stage This project is scheduled to start up in Q4
environment permits full conversion of difficult 2009. The unit will continue to run in a maxi-
feeds, with less than half the reactor volume mum mid-distillate mode.
needed compared to single-stage once-through
(SSOT) or single-stage recycle (SSREC). The Hydrocracking for lubes and integrated fuels
obvious difference between the traditional TSR and lubes production
configuration and the SSRS configuration is that The benefits of hydrocracking to produce feeds
the effluent from the second stage flows directly for lubricant base stocks — as well as other
to the inlet of the first stage, which provides the downstream process operations such as FCCs
following benefits over a conventional TSR and ethylene plants — are well known and in use
configuration: in plants around the world. In most of these
• Effluent from the second stage provides a heat cases, there is a dedicated lube hydrocracker,

2 Revamps 2009 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000222

followed by dewaxing and finishing steps. What high-severity operations in resid desulphurisa-
is more unusual is the integration of a hydroc- tion (RDS) units, or to extend cycle length and
racker, primarily devoted to making high-quality throughput via retrofits to plants already
fuels (especially ultra-low sulphur, low-aromatic constructed led to the idea of replacing the cata-
diesel), while also producing excellent feed for a lyst while the unit is on-stream. Liquid-filled
dewaxing/finishing unit. The benefits of such an upflow reactor (UFR) technology with on-stream
approach are clear: a lower capital investment catalyst replacement (OCR) involves the catalyst
than is required to build separate fuels and lubes moving in counter-current flow to a mix of resid-
hydrocrackers; and a lower cost of producing uum and hydrogen, to ensure full use of the
high-value lube base stocks. catalyst. In operation, the most deactivated cata-
This TSR configuration, with its innate advan- lyst encounters the most reactive feed at the
tages for making clean fuels, can also provide a reactor’s (bottom) inlet; spent catalyst is with-
flexible platform for producing a range of lube drawn from the bottom. The least reactive feed
base oils. The patented principle is shown in contacts the most active (fresh) catalyst at the
Figure 2, where the configuration can be set up reactor’s (top) exit. Fresh catalyst is introduced
to produce three lube base oil feedstocks, while at the top during the on-stream catalyst replace-
maintaining to a large degree the predetermined ment cycle. OCR technology is being
overall conversion level for fuels. Each of the commercially demonstrated in four units
three lubricating oil streams is of different qual- currently in operation.
ity and boiling range. Investment to recover each As the need arose to extract most of the value
stream for further Isodewaxing/Isofinishing provided by the OCR’s upflow reactor, while
steps can even be phased to match market minimising capital investment and avoiding
requirements. Bharat Petroleum Corporation catalyst-handling facilities, the idea of the UFR
(BPCL), a refiner in India, recognised the poten- emerged. While it cannot provide all of the
tial of the TSR-configured hydrocracker. With demetallation to be expected of an OCR, the UFR
CLG’s TSR process, BPCL designed in an inte- is able to add utility in other ways. Since it is not
grated Isodewaxing/Isofinishing unit, using the a moving bed design, multiple beds of different
flexibility available in its TSR to supply its fore- catalysts can be used, including combinations of
cast lube base oil market.
The company constructed the
unit with minimal interruption ( (
to the imminent startup of the ,IQUID /VERHEADSTREAM
hydrocracker. Phasing in the HYDROCARBON
2ECYCLE
STEAM

FEEDSTOCK
design of the Isodewaxing/ /FFGAS
Isofinishing unit with the Atm.
Hydrocracking
Hydroprocessing

hydrocracker project before all stripper

zone

of the major equipment had #OMBINEDSTEAM

zone

STFUEL
been ordered enabled BPCL PRODUCT
Atm. separation zone

and CLG to reduce costs by NDEFFLUENT

over 30%, compared to a
stand-alone unit. Several major
FRACTION

RDLUBRICATING
(EAVY

ST NDFUEL OILPRODUCT

pieces of high-pressure equip- EFFLUENT PRODUCT
ment could be eliminated for ,UBRICATING
OILSTREAM
the lubes hydroprocessing unit.
Vacuum STLUBRICATING
BPCL’s lubes plant successfully separation OILPRODUCT
zone
started up one year following
"OTTOMFRACTION
feed in to the hydrocracker in
2006.
NDLUBRICATING
PRODUCT
Residue upgrading
The need to process resid feeds
with high metal content, to run Figure 2 Isocracking for fuels and lubes

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000222 Revamps 2009 3

 accomplished by making optimum use
of the existing unit’s design and by
#ATALYST integration of what were previously
ADDITION
thought of as separate hydroprocessing
plants. All concepts discussed in this
1UENCH
1UENCH article have been designed for commer-
cial units, two of which are currently
1UENCH operating and the other units will start
1UENCH up within the next few years.

Isocracking, Isodewaxing and Isofinishing are marks

of Chevron Lummus Global.

#ATALYST References
WITHDRAWAL
1 Wade R, Vislocky J, Maesen T, Torchia D,
Hydrocracking catalyst developments and innovative
processing scheme, NPRA Annual Meeting, Mar
Figure 3 UFR vs OCR reactors 2009.
2 Spieler S, Mukherjee U, Dahlberg A, Upgrading residuum to
HDM and HDS catalysts (Figure 3). The major finished products in integrated hydroprocessing platforms —
attribute of the UFR (as well as the OCR) is its solutions and challenges, NPRA Annual Meeting, Mar 2006.
very low pressure drop. This avoids typical limi- 3 Steegstra J, Louie W S, Mukherjee U, Innovative and cost
tations in the recycle compressor and, therefore, effective designs to achieve multiple clean fuels solutions, BBTC
revamping an existing vacuum resid desulphuri- 2004 Antwerp, Oct 2004.
sation (VRDS) unit is feasible and economically
Jay Parekh is the Process Engineering Team Leader for Chevron
attractive. This was one of the main reasons why
Lummus Global., Richmond, California. He has worked for
the ENI Taranto Refinery in Italy selected UFR
Chevron for 18 years, with over ten years in the hydro-processing
technology.
and refining industry.
ENI Taranto’s residue hydro-conversion unit Harjeet Virdi is the Hydrocracking Technology Manager for
was revamped to expand the unit’s capacity by Chevron Lummus Global, Richmond, California. He has worked in
25%. Start-up was in 2006. In addition to the hydroprocessing and refining industry for 28 years.
increased throughput, it has provided the refiner Email: [email protected]
with the ability to process heavier local crudes,
such as Tempa Rossa and Belaym.

Conclusions Links
In order to provide refiners with opportunities to
More articles from: CB&I
revamp hydro-processing units at lower levels of
total capital investment, CLG has developed and More articles from the following category:
commercialised a number of process concepts to Hydroprocessing
make the most of existing hardware. This is

4 Revamps 2009 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000222