AM-12-57 Using FCC Feed Hydrotreating to Meet the New Challenges in the Brazilian Fuel Market

Description:

Following the country’s accelerated development in the last five years the Brazilian fuel market has seen substantial growth both in the distillate and in the gasoline sectors. These changes have been accompanied with an abrupt upgrade in the gasoline and diesel fuel specifications with the new sulfur limits on par with specifications in Europe and in the US. Substantial investment, particularly in hydrotreating, has been necessary for the new fuel quality and four new refineries, which will increase refining capacity by 30% in the first five years and by another 30% in the following five years, are in the works to meet the projected growth in demand. National oil production is also seeing vigorous increase, with new offshore crude oil of better quality being discovered. Meanwhile, before the new assets are ready to supply the expanding market, the gap between production and demand will have to be met by optimization of the existing resources. One of the opportunities for optimization is FCC feed hydrotreatment. On previous occasions FCC pretreatment was evaluated without meeting the return on investment required for implementation. The changing scenario, however, creates new opportunities. For instance, moderate pressure hydrotreaters, which can no longer produce the new low sulfur diesel fuel, may be used for hydrotreating part of the FCC feed, leading to better yields, lower emissions and opening up extra capacity with the improved feed quality. In the present work, case studies will be presented examining these strategies, either for maximizing mid-distillate or gasoline production in the FCC.