AM-06-16 Changing Refinery Configurations for Heavy and Synthetic Crude Processing

Description:

Reduced availability of light conventional crudes in the future will create demand for new crude sources that will necessitate refinery configuration changes. The production of heavy crudes, synthetic crudes, and bitumen blends is growing, and the supply of bitumen-derived crudes is expected to reach almost three million barrels per day by the year 20151. A plethora of synthetic crudes and bitumen blends have become available, all of which pose different challenges for today’s refiners. Some crudes are both higher in contaminant levels and have a composition that makes them more difficult to upgrade. Coupled with the demand for increased production of ultra-clean diesel and gasoline, innovative refinery configuration changes will be needed to accommodate these new feedstocks. The potential processing schemes under consideration range from simple hydrotreating for contaminant removal, to hydrocracking and fluid catalytic cracking for conversion of gas oil to high-quality transportation fuels. It is the integration of these process technologies, however, that offers the greatest economic potential. This paper focuses on the processing of heavy and synthetic crude blends using innovative process integration across several technology platforms to produce clean fuels.