Chevron is one of the world’s leading companies in hydroprocessing. We were the first company who invented and commercialized ISOCRACKING (hydrocracking) technology to convert heavy fractions of crude oils into clean fuels in 1960s. We commercialized the first all-hydroprocessing base oil plant for producing premium base oil in Richmond Lube Oil Plant in Richmond California in 1980s. Crude oils are comprised of thousands of hydrocarbon components and impurities including metals and heteroatoms such as N and S containing hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons in crude oils vary greatly from their origins. The recent addition of massive shale oils enriches the spectrum of hydrocarbon pools. All these variations require customizing catalyst systems to maximize economic benefits for every refiner around the globe. To meet the challenge, effective analytical tools are needed to characterize and understand crude oils that refiners want to process before a tailored catalyst can be proposed to meet their objectives. In Chevron, we have been successfully using many advanced analytical tools such high-resolution mass spectrometer coupled with GC and HPLC to characterize aromatics and N and S compounds in crude oil, and then to correlate characterization results to catalysts’ performance. These results are integrated into catalyst design for maximum catalyst selectivity and lifecycle.<br/><br/>Keywords: hydroprocessing, organic nitrogen compounds, high-resolution mass spectroscopy, vacuum gas oil.

Hydroprocessing catalyst system design for tailoring crude oils characterized by advanced analytical techniques

255th National Meeting (2018)

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