Pathway to Maximizing Residue Upgrading Margins

The refinery industry today faces tremendous challenges to meet the growing demand of not only traditional transportation fuels, especially distillates, but also petrochemical feedstocks, including aromatics and propylene. Additionally, the refinery industry needs to increase residue conversion as demand and price differentials for transportation fuels and petrochemicals are increasing, while declining for fuel oil. Refiners who can meet all of these objectives will be highly profitable and set the standard for others to follow.
To meet these objectives refiners need residue conversion solutions that not only obtain high conversion but also have the flexibility to make intermediate products suitable for further conversion in more selective catalytic processes such as Hydrocracking when making distillates or naphtha for aromatics production, and FCC when making Propylene.
This presentation will compare options available today to meet these demands and will highlight recent advances made by Foster Wheeler in using established technologies to provide high conversion, cost effective solutions to the residue conversion puzzle.