Abstract:

The economic benefit analysis was made for several processing routes of Oman crude oil, Arab medium oil, Iranian heavy oil and Tahe crude oil at international oil price of $35-$100/bbl. The processing routes included slurry-bed, ebullated-bed, and fixed-bed residual oil hydroprocesses, delayed coking, and combination process with solvent deasphalting (SDA). The results show that the economic benefit of the slurry-bed is superior to that of the ebullated-bed residual oil hydroprocesses based on the price system used in this article. When the price of crude oil is above $80/bbl, the economic benefit of the slurry-bed residual oil hydroprocess is better than that of the fixed-bed residual oil hydroprocess using conventional crude oil as feed. With the constant improvement of technology and reduction of processing cost, the slurry-bed residual oil hydroprocesses have good market prospects. When the price of crude oil is more than $35/bbl, the economic benefit of SDA combination process has an advantage over the delayed coking. For the refineries which are lack of hydrogen source and have preferential raw materials for delayed coking, the SDA combination process is a good choice when the price of crude oil is less than $55/bbl. The fixed-bed residual oil hydroprocess is recommended when the price of conventional crude oil is between $45/bbl and $80/bbl.

Key words: slurry-bed, residual oil hydroprocess, ebullated-bed, fixed-bed, solvent deasphalting, delayed coking, technical economy