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What potential opportunities are available for gasification of refinery residues?
 
Answers
22/07/2007 A: Eddie R. Delgado, Criterion Catalysts , eddie.delgado@criterioncatalysts.com
Refiners make decisions about residue technology applications based on market needs, their own refining goals and strategy, superimposed on site-specific considerations. A large range of residue upgrading technologies are available, including carbon rejection technologies such as coking, visbreaking, residue FCC, gasification, etc. Also available are hydrogen addition technologies, such as fixed-bed/moving bed atmospheric and vacuum residue hydrotreating, moving-bed/ebullating residue hydrocracking and combinations of both.
An Eastern European refiner recently licensed the Shell gasification process in combination with the Shell hydrocracking process from our affiliate Shell Global Solutions International BV, and the KBR ROSE process. The objective is to convert high-sulfur residual oils into syngas for power and hydrogen production, and to be able to produce diesel fuels that will meet future EU specifications.
Another refiner selected an ebullated bed resid upgrader in order to process high-sulfur containing residual oils, while another has chosen a fixed-bed atmospheric residue unit to be able to process Middle Eastern residual oils, and yet another selected a fixed-bed vacuum residue unit as a pre-treatment step for a residue FCC. In addition, we are aware of several coking applications.