New Technology for Enhanced Clean Diesel Production

The ability to take advantage of crude oil price differentials can significantly improve refinery profitability. Crude oils with lower distillate content and higher sulfur are general viewed as problematic, when in fact they my present opportunities to capture income if a refiner can upgrade them economically. Higher sulfur content and increased heavy gas oil yields will put stress on bottom of the barrel conversion facilities and also on the related hydroprocessing facilities that will transform intermediate products to final specifications. Haldor Topsoe has developed new technologies and catalysts to economically upgrade heavy gas oils and distillates with the optimal utilization of limited hydrogen supply resources. Staged partial conversion (SPC) technology can be used to gain incremental heavy gas oil conversion from existing FCC feed hydrotreaters. The proprietary SPC configuration can deliver better diesel product quality and lower hydrogen consumption than is possible with conventional mild hydrocracking technology. For diesel hydrotreating, Reverse Poly-shift technology can be used to expand the capacity of existing distillate hydrotreaters to produce more high quality ultra-low sulfur diesel with optimized hydrogen utilization. Reverse Poly-shift allows the refiner to adjust hydrogen demand independently from hydro-desuflurization requirements and thereby eliminate product quality giveaway by excess hydrogen consumption. This means significant extra HDS capacity can be achieved without the addition of new hydrogen supply. Modest investments in the revamp of existing hydroprocessing units can dramatically improve a refiner’s ability to process opportunity crudes and increase profits.