Plant hydrocracking

Shell Gas B.V. has constructed a 1987 mVd (12,500 bbhd) Fischer-Tropsch plant in Malaysia, start-up occurring in 1994. The Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis (SMDS) process, as it is called, uses natural gas as the feedstock to fixed-bed reactors containing cobalt-based cat- yst. The heavy hydrocarbons from the Fischer-Tropsch reactors are converted to distillate fuels by hydrocracking and hydroisomerization. The quality of the products is very high, the diesel fuel having a cetane number in excess of 75. 

Basic to establishing whether power recovery is even feasible, let alone economical, are considerations of the flowing-fluid capacity available, the differential pressure available for the power recovery, and corrosive or erosive properties of the fluid stream. A further important consideration in feasibihty and economics is the probable physical location, with respect to each other, of fluid source, power-production point, and final fluid destination. In general, the tendency has been to locate the power-recoveiy driver and its driven unit where dictated by the driven-unit requirement and pipe the power-recoveiy fluid to and away from the driver. While early installations were in noncorrosive, nonerosive services such as rich-hydrocarbon absorption oil, the trend has been to put units into mildly severe seiwices such as amine plants, hot-carbonate units, and hydrocracker letdown. 

Work has also continued on the solvent-refined coal + hydrocracking concept (the NT.SL, or non-integrat-ed, two-stage liquefaction process), and a pilot plant was operated by Amoco, DOE and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) from 1974 to 1992. 

FEED FOR HYDROCRACKER FIRST-STAGE PILOT PLANT TESTS... 

Feeds and Products, Barrels per Calendar Day Refinery Input Severity Hydrotreating Hydrocracking Hydrogen Manufacture Recovery and Sulfur Plant Refinery Fuel Motor Gasoline By- Products... 

Presently it is mostly used as a fuel, but as petroleum becomes increasingly scarce and expensive, proposals and experimental plants for using this material begin to appear. One such process uses fluid-bed hydrocracking and dealkylation to produce phenols and benzene. 

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