The slurry-bed residue hydrogenation technology with a design conversion rate of 94% has been successfully industrialized in China
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At the beginning of the new year, Sinopec announced that its 2.6 million tons per year slurry-bed residue hydrogenation unit at Maoming Petrochemical was put into operation on December 31, 2020, marking the successful industrial application in China of world-leading slurry-bed residue hydrogenation technology. The world’s largest and China’s first slurry-bed residue hydrogenation unit, with a light oil conversion rate of 94%, has been successfully put into industrial use in China. Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical stated that this 2.6 million tons per year capacity slurry-bed residue hydrogenation plant is the largest of its kind in the world and the first of its type in China. It utilizes the Italian ENI-EST process technology, enabling the efficient conversion of heavy and low-quality crude oils into clean petroleum products. It boasts significant technical advantages such as high conversion efficiency and a high yield of light oil, allowing it to better adapt to changes in the properties of raw materials and to produce the highest quality products even from the worst-quality residues. Sinopec introduced this technology as a key project under the 13th Five-Year Plan. Maoming Petrochemical seized the opportunity to build and put into operation this world’s largest slurry-bed residue hydrogenation unit with an annual capacity of 2.6 million tons, in order to optimize its product portfolio. As the core unit of Maoming Petrochemical’s product structure optimization project, the 2.6 million tons per year slurry-bed residue hydrogenation unit uses low-quality vacuum residue and catalytic cracking slurry as raw materials; through hydrocracking reactions, it produces liquefied gas, chemical feedstocks, heavy naphtha, diesel, and vacuum wax oil. The plant’s design enables a light oil conversion rate of up to 94%, allowing low-value products such as asphalt and coke to be converted into high-value clean fuels like gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. This results in a significant increase in the yield of light oil throughout the plant, thereby maximizing the utilization of petroleum resources.
From the initial planning, design, construction to production, this project emphasizes clean production. It includes facilities such as a 1.5 million tons per year combined hydroprocessing unit for light oils, a 150,000 tons per year sulfur recovery unit, and a 200 tons per hour acidic water stripping unit. While improving the quality of the oil products, these facilities can also meet the needs for treating waste gases and wastewater throughout the plant. As a result, they help reduce SO2 and VOCs emissions on an annual basis, further improving the environmental conditions within the plant and making the production process more environmentally friendly, with significant social benefits. Construction of the facility began in October 2018. As it was the first such installation in the country, there was no existing experience to draw upon for equipment manufacturing, project construction, or the commissioning of the installation. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic this year has had a significant impact on construction projects. Maoming Petrochemical adheres to the principle of \"coordinating construction efforts through operational activities,\" and applies high standards and strict requirements in order to ensure effective pandemic control and proper construction organization; it did not suspend operations for a single day due to the pandemic. At the same time, efforts were made to strengthen staff training and production preparation, and early involvement in the \"three inspections and four determinations\" process helped overcome challenges such as the impact of the pandemic, the complexity of the plant’s processing technologies, the large number of new types of equipment, and the lack of operational experience among the staff. This enabled a successful commissioning of the plant from the very first attempt, providing valuable experience for the industrial application of slurry-bed residue hydrogenation technology in China’s and even the world’s petrochemical industry.
This post was last edited by Desert Fish on 2021-11-29 at 13:05
What special equipment is used in this process? ? ? ?
The unconverted oil needs to be gasified; currently it is sent to coking, which poses significant problems. The conversion rate is not yet 94%.
It has not yet met the standards; could it be due to inadequate processing techniques that require improvement?
The ZPC1# slurry bed has entered the startup procedure; we look forward to re-verifying the conversion rate!
During the heating process of the starting gas, why is there a temperature difference of around 4°C radially between the bottom of the reactor and the upper part of the distributor? This temperature difference gradually decreases as one moves upward along the axis; could it be that the mixing of gases in the lower region within the distributor is not intense? Has there been any improvement in the condition of the feed slurry? With an average reactor temperature of 200°C and a temperature difference of -5°C due to heat loss, can we understand that the normal temperature difference in a slurry bed operation is 2–5°C? What temperature increase would occur if the reaction heat were used for insulation purposes (7–10°C)?