AM-92-48 HYDROTREATING OF HYDROCRACKER AND VIRGIN LIGHT GAS OILS FROM ATHABASCA BITUMEN USING REGENERATED NiMo CATALYSTS: COMMERCIAL EXPERIENCE

Description:

Twice-regenerated NiMo catalyst has been used successfully in a Syncrude commercial hydrotreater processing bitumen-derived hydrocracker and virgin light gas oils. The run length was 25 months or 81 barrels of feed per pound of catalyst. The unit run was terminated because of high reactor pressure drop due to treating fines- and sodium-contaminated coker gas oil, not because of catalyst exhaustion. Decrease in catalyst activity during this period corresponded to 13OC increase in reactor temperature. Hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) and hydrodesulfurization (HDS) data have been reviewed. Using pilot data and simple first order kinetics for HDS and HDN, correlations to monitor catalyst deactivation were developed, and subsequently applied to commercial operations.