ECONOMIC EVALUATION FOR SOME FUEL OIL

UPGRADING PROCESSE

Seham A. El- Temtamy and Tahani S. Gendy

Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Refiners all over the world are facing the challenge of decreasing good quality oil supplies, increasing demand for distillate fuels, surplus in residual fuel oil and more strict environmental regulations. That is why upgrading of residual fuel oils is now a necessity.

Upgrading of fuel oil produced in the Egyptian refineries to more valuable light products has two advantages; firstly utilization of the surplus of fuel oil available, secondly, this fuel oil can be converted to lighter petroleum fractions thus filling an existing gap.

Different alternatives for the upgrading can be tackled. Either direct upgrading of the atmospheric residue, AR, or as more commonly adopted, first subject the atmospheric residue to vacuum distillation then upgrade  the vacuum  residue, VR, and vacuum gas oil, VGO, to more valuable and lighter products.

Different processing schemes are evaluated using the discounting cash flow method. Economic parameters such as internal rate of return, IRR, pay back period, PBP and net present value, NPV are calculated for each option.

Key Words: Upgrading of fuel oil, Upgrading of vacuum gasoil, residue catalytic cracking, deep catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, delayed coking