AM-13-03 Rive Molecular HighwayTM Catalyst Delivers Over $2.50/bbl Uplift at Alon’s Big Spring, Texas Refinery

Description:

Refiners are continuously striving to expand margins by optimizing their operations. Flexible FCC catalyst technologies that offer better coke selectivity and bottoms upgrading can help refiners overcome operating constraints, make a more valuable product slate, and optimize profitability. FCC catalyst innovation the last decade has largely focused on achieving these results through improved matrices, binders and additives, rather than through improvements to the zeolite component of the catalyst. Rive has focused its research on the zeolite component of the FCC catalyst and has developed Molecular Highway™ mesoporous zeolite technology for improved mass transfer into and within zeolite crystals. The enhanced porosity of the zeolite, when incorporated into FCC catalysts, allows FCC feed molecules to more readily access the interior of the zeolite, undergo the desired reactions, and then quickly exit, leading to improved selectivity – namely, better coke selectivity, lower bottoms yields and higher yields of products such as gasoline, diesel, and light olefins, depending on the refiner’s objectives. Last year Rive successfully trialed the first generation of Molecular Highway™ technology on a paraffinic VGO feed in the CountryMark refinery FCCU. This year Rive has successfully demonstrated the second generation of its technology, on a resid feed, at the Alon USA FCCU in Big Spring, TX. This paper will discuss Molecular Highway technology and the results from the trial at Alon’s Big Spring, TX refinery, where a W.R. Grace & Co.-manufactured catalyst containing Rive zeolite was used successfully to achieve over $2.50/bbl value uplift in the FCCU.