Hydroprocessing Heavy Oil and Residue Process by

Application: Conversion of heavy petroleum residues or crude oil into lighter and higher value materials.

Products: Low-sulfur content naphtha, diesel and gasoil

Description: The Genoil Upgrader consists of the proprietary Genoil hydroconversion unit (GHU) and an integrated gasification and combined cycle (IGCC) section. By integrating with gasification and balancing pitch conversion with hydrogen and utility demands, the GHU and the overall upgrader becomes a truly bottomless, self-sufficient facility that is suitable to be added into an existing refining complex or as a merchant upgrader near a remote oil field.

Based on a fixed-bed hydrogenation technology and using special mixing devices to ensure full catalysts utilization and higher efficiency, the GHU converts the heavy petroleum feed into lighter products such as naphtha, diesel and low-sulfur gasoil that can be used as fuel-oil blend or FCCU feed. The unconverted portion will be removed as vacuum residue (VR) and fed to the IGCC units. In comparison to the traditional residue treating processes such as visbreaking and delayed coking, the GHU offers a significantly higher conversion to valuable petroleum products. The IGCC will use partial oxidation and gasification technologies to convert the VR into hydrogen, fuel gas and power. The hydrogen will be recovered and fed to the GHU to support the hydrogenation reactions, whereas fuel gas, steam and power are used to run the overall Genoil upgrader.

Process: In general, the Genoil upgrader consists of these processing units (see diagram):
• Genoil hydroconversion unit (GHU)
• Syngas unit (SGU)
• Air separation unit (ASU)
• Acid-gas removal unit (AGR)
• Hydrogen recovery unit (HRU)
• Combined-cycle unit (CCU.)

The GHU is similar to normal hydrotreating units consisting sections such as: feed preparation and preheat, reactions, effluent cooling and separation, gas recycle and product fractionation. The reactor section consists of a series of four reactor beds: guard, hydrodemetalization (HDM), hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and hydrodenitrogenation (HDN).

The syngas unit converts the VR under a partial oxidation processing condition in the gasifier to produce syngas, which is a mixture of H2, CO and CO2. The sulfur and nitrogen content in the residue will be converted to H2S, NH3 and HCN. After purification and cooling, the syngas will be sent to the AGR unit.

The ASU uses refrigeration and distillation to separate oxygen from ambient air. The oxygen product stream consisting over 95% oxygen is fed to the gasifier in the SGU as combustion air.

The AGR performs these operations: Remove the H2S from the syngas, GHU offgas and sour condensate using MDEA absorption technology; Convert CO into more H2 using high temperature shift and remove CO2 from sweetened gas using DGA absorption technology.

The HRU recovers H2 using pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technology. The sulfur recovery unit (SRU) uses a three-stage Claus Unit followed by an amine tail gas recovery plant to recover over 99.5% of the sulfur in the AGR offgas.

The CCU consists of gas turbine generator (GTG), heat-recovery steam generator (HRSG). Part of the steam produced will be used in the Upgrader and the reminder is sent to a steam turbine generator (STG) to produce more electrical power.

Performance: 85+% HDS, 50+%HDN, 8 –12 API increase, 50% pitch conversion (to balance conversion and utilities requirement)

Yields: Product yields depend on the quality of feed. For a typical AR feed, the liquid yields are: 3% Naphtha, 26% Diesel and 57% Gasoil, all based on the mass of crude feed.

Licensor: Genoil Inc.