Residue Upgrading

Multiple solutions to meet your residue conversion needs

In today’s market there is a growth in demand for transportation fuels, primarily diesel and bunker fuel oil as well as a decrease in demand for residual fuel oil. This shift, combined with the lowering sulfur limits worldwide, makes maximizing conversion, especially conversion to distillates, critical.

UOP’s residue upgrading portfolio includes a range of solutions that will help you to achieve your unique processing objectives:

• The UOP Uniflex™ slurry hydrocracking process offers maximum conversion (90% +) that is selective to transportation fuels, and minimizes production of residue byproduct. This process fits most future requirements.
• The UOP RFCC Resid FCC process is a cost effective means for converting moderate to severely contaminated feedstocks to gasoline and lighter components.
• The UOP RCD Unionfining process is a residue hydrotreating process that removes contaminants and adds hydrogen for downstream Resid FCC processing. It can sometimes be used to produce low sulfur fuel oil.
• The FWUSA SYDEC process is a severe thermal conversion process that produces a wide range of products. Once hydrotreated, these products can be processed in other refinery processes and a byproduct residue coke.
• The UOP/FWUSA Solvent Deasphalting process separates residue into high quality, low contaminant level deasphalted oil for downstream hydrocracking, or FCC/RFCC units. It can also produce a highly contaminated pitch stream for residue fuel oil, power plant fuel, gasification and coking.
• The UOP/FWUSA Visbreaking process is a low cost process that reduces viscosity of residues to minimize “cutter” stock in addition to making residue fuel oil.

There are several factors that impact technology selection from feedstock type and quality and product objectives to your existing refinery capabilities, feed prices and financing.Let us help you find the solution that best meets your needs.

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Significant Byproduct Reduction and Improved Margins

Our newest residue upgrading technology, the UOP Uniflex™ process is a slurry hydrocracking process that maximizes the conversion of residues to transportation fuels while reducing residue byproducts around 70% compared to delayed coking.

Uniflex can significantly increase your refinery margins $2 to -$4 per barrel over conventional residue conversion technologies.

The process achieves very high conversion of vacuum residue through the addition of a proprietary, dispersed-phase catalyst injected into the feed under elevated temperatures and pressures in a hydrogen atmosphere. It produces desirable naphtha, distillates and gas oil conversion feedstocks.

When processing crude oil or petroleum in a refinery, UOP Uniflex™ process services may include:

• Research
• Engineering
• Design
• Technical planning
• Technical analysis and consultation

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Maximize residual fuel oil conversion

The UOP Resid FCC or RFCC process utilizes an effective two-stage stacked regenerator with UOP catalyst cooler(s) to provide you with a cost effective means for converting moderate to severely contaminated feedstocks to gasoline and lighter components.  These features together with other important design considerations manage the high heat of combustion, metals lay-down on circulating catalyst, and other challenges associated with the processing of reduced crude.

The two-stage regeneration process is highly efficient at moderating regeneration temperatures necessary to minimize catalyst damage while maintaining sufficient removal of carbon on catalyst to ensure maximum conversion of residual feed within the reactor. The catalyst cooler(s) provide the primary means of heat removal for the process and provide an added unit flexibility relative to conventional designs.

High selectivity to gasoline and other high-value products is achieved by optimized feedstock/catalyst mixing, effective post-riser catalyst/oil disengagement, metals passivation, and other design and operating techniques.

With these unique design features, UOP’s RFCC Process allows the greatest flexibility in feedstock quality (conradson carbon and metals) while achieving high conversion and maximum selectivity to valuable products, maximizing your margins and overall project ROI. 

For refiners that are interested in the production of petrochemical feeds from residue, UOP’s latest FCC-based solution, Resid RxPro can provide the right solution that maximizes return.  Follow this link to read more about UOP FCC-based propylene solutions.

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Pre-Treat Residues for Downstream Conversion

The UOP RCD Unionfining™ Process removes sulfur, nitrogen, organometallics, and asphaltenes from atmospheric/vacuum reduced crudes or other heavy oil streams.

Originally developed for low sulfur fuel oil production, the technology in recent years has also been used as pretreatment for downstream conversion processes, most typically resid catalytic cracking like the UOP RFCC Process.  Key to these downstream catalytic conversion processes are metals reduction and asphaltene/con carbon reduction, parameters that dictate conversion unit catalyst cost.  UOP has long experience in designing “black oil” units as UOP was the first licensor to commercialize residue hydrotreating.

The RCD Unionfining process is a fixed-bed catalytic hydrotreating process,combining unique process design parameters with Albemarle’s state-of-the-art residue hydrotreating catalysts.  A selection of different catalysts are employed to favor demetallization at the front of the catalyst section and desulfurization as the bed progresses. The process can be applied to a wide variety of heavy oil streams with feed quality and product objectives setting operating conditions and catalyst volumes.  UOP and Albemarle offer the most efficient designs in the industry, minimizing capital and on-going catalyst cost, maximizing your project ROI.

UOP’s value goes beyond the RCD Unionfining unit itself.  We provide solutions for the integration of the hydrotreating unit with your downstream conversion unit, optimizing your profit potential.  We also offer unique hydrogen management capabilities that can minimize your hydrogen production costs.

Let UOP specialists show you how our RCD Unionfining solution can fit into your overall residue/heavy oil upgrading strategy.

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Flexibility to upgrade a variety of feedstocks to high-quality, lighter products.

The Foster Wheeler Selective Yield Delayed Coking (SYDEC) delayed coking process is a low-pressure, low-recycle coking process for maximum liquid yields and minimizing coke. The process produces a variety of products to suit your operation needs:

• Gas oil conversion unit feedstocks
• Distillates
• Naphtha
• Petroleum

SYDEC is a full conversion process that can process all types of residues. In combination with VGO Hydrocracking it is the preferred route today for maximizing distillate yields.

The process is exclusively licensed by Foster Wheeler USA Corporation. More than 50 delayed coking plants have been licensed in 37 countries over the past 50 years.

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Significantly increase transport fuel yields in your refinery

The UOP/FW Solvent Deasphalting process (SDA) separates residue by molecular weight, instead of by boiling point to produces a low-contaminant deasphalted oil that is rich in paraffinic-type molecules and a high viscosity residue byproduct (pitch).

The SDA process efficiently separates vacuum residue into high-quality conventional vacuum gas oil conversion unit feedstock from the lowest quality components in vacuum residue.

The UOP/FW SDA process utilizes the most efficient extraction and solvent recovery systems available resulting in maximizing DAO quality and minimizing costs.

UOP and Foster Wheeler have designed and licensed over 70 SDA units, ranging in size from 7,000 to 48,000 barrels per day.

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