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Process for upgrading heavy hydrocarbon oils

A heavy hydrocarbon upgrading technology, applied in the preparation of refined hydrocarbon oil, liquid hydrocarbon mixture, petroleum industry, etc., can solve the problems of high sensitivity of natural gas, high operating cost, expensive infrastructure, etc.

Inactive Publication Date: 2009-10-07
CHEVROU USA INC
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0005] 1. The infrastructure required to handle, recycle and recycle diluents is expensive, especially over long distances
Availability of diluent is another potential issue
[0006] 2. Hydrogenation methods such as hydrotreating or hydrocracking require substantial investment in capital and infrastructure
[0007] 3. Hydrogenation methods also have high operating costs, as the cost of producing hydrogen is highly sensitive to the price of natural gas
[0008] 4. In some cases, the refining and / or upgrading facility closest to the production site may have neither the capacity nor the equipment to receive the heavy oil
Direct heating of the oil feedstock may result in overheating, resulting in more solid residue formation, lower yield of desired product and lower product quality

Method used

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  • Process for upgrading heavy hydrocarbon oils
  • Process for upgrading heavy hydrocarbon oils
  • Process for upgrading heavy hydrocarbon oils

Examples

Experimental program
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Effect test

Embodiment 1

[0054] Example 1 - Demonstrates a typical laboratory method

[0055] figure 1 A process flow diagram of a laboratory setup used to practice some embodiments of the invention is shown. Oil and supercritical water are contacted in a mixer before entering the reactor. The reactor is equipped with internal pipes for collecting the products (synthetic crude, excess water and gas), and a bottom part where any metals or solids containing a "residue stream" of unknown nature or composition can accumulate. The shell side of the reactor was maintained isothermal during the reaction with a clamshell furnace and temperature controller. The preferred reactor residence time is 20-40 minutes, and the preferred oil / water volume ratio is 1:3. The preferred temperature is about 374-400°C and the pressure is 3200-4000 psig. The reactor product stream exits in a single phase and is cooled and separated into gas, synthetic crude and effluent water. Effluent water was recycled back to the reac...

Embodiment 2

[0057] Example 2 - Properties of the Product Synthetic Crude

[0058] The Hamaca crude was diluted with diluent hydrocarbons in a ratio of 5:1 (20% diluent by volume). Using Example 1 and figure 2 The mentioned supercritical water method was used to determine the properties of the diluted Hamaca crude before reacting it. The properties of the crude oil are as follows: 12.8 API gravity at 60 / 60, 1329 CST viscosity at 40°C; 7.66 wt% C / H ratio; 13.04 wt% MCRT; 3.54 wt% sulfur; 0.56 wt% nitrogen 3.05 mgKOH / gm acid value; 1.41 wt% water; 371 ppm vanadium; and 86 ppm nickel. The diluted Hamaca crude oil is converted into synthetic crude oil after supercritical water treatment, and the synthetic crude oil has the following properties: API gravity at 60 / 60 is 24.1, viscosity at 40°C is 5.75CST; C / H ratio of 7.40wt% 2.25 wt% MCRT; 2.83 wt% sulfur; 0.28 wt% nitrogen; 1.54 mgKOH / gm acid value; 0.96 wt% water; 24 ppm vanadium; and 3 ppm nickel. A substantial reduction in metals and r...

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Abstract

A process using supercritical water to upgrade a heavy hydrocarbon feedstock into an upgraded hydrocarbon product or syncrude with highly desirable properties (low sulfur content, low metals content, lower density (higher API), lower viscosity lower, residuum content, etc.) is disclosed. The process does not require external supply of hydrogen nor does it use externally supplied catalysts. Improved methods of mixing the reactants are also disclosed.

Description

field of invention [0001] The present invention relates to the upgrading of heavy hydrocarbons such as whole distillate heavy oil, bitumen and the like using supercritical water. Background of the invention [0002] The oils produced from the vast oil reserves around the world are simply too heavy to flow at ambient temperatures. This makes it a challenge to bring remote heavy oil resources closer to market. A typical example is the Hamaca mine field in Venezuela. To make such heavy oils flowable, one of the most common methods known in the art is to reduce the viscosity and density by mixing the heavy oil with sufficient diluent. The diluent may be naphtha or any other stream with a significantly higher API gravity (ie much lower density) than the heavy oil. [0003] In the case of Hamaca, for example, the diluted crude oil is sent from the production wellhead to the upgrader via a pipeline. There are two key operations in the upgrading plant: (1) recovering the diluent...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(China)
IPC IPC(8): C10G9/00
CPCC10G1/047C10G31/00
Inventor Z·何李琳L·黎D·钦
Owner CHEVROU USA INC
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