Due to the increasing production of heavy crudes and the worldwide demand for cleaner fuels, new alternatives must be found for satisfying those requirements. On the other side, the production of light crudes is decreasing and hence in the future the refineries will have to process higher amounts of heavy crudes. The great challenge for the refineries is to transform heavy crudes and residues into valuable products to maximize the production of light fractions for the elaboration of fuels that satisfy the environmental regulations [1].

The heavy crude hydrotreatment process (HDT), developed at IMP (The Mexican Institute of Petroleum), is an alternative to solve the problematic of heavy crudes. The HDT process has been tested at experimental scale, the details are provided elsewhere [2]. The HDT process employs a system of two reactors in series with selective catalysts, the first for hydrodemetallization (HDM) and the second for hydrodesulfurization (HDS) for processing the heavy fraction. One process option is to hydrotreat the light fraction and the product of both hydrotreating steps is mixed to formulate synthetic crude.

Since the process configuration includes several cold and hot streams, it is then necessary to perform heat integration studies. Additionally, the reactions are exothermic, and they must be quenched with hydrogen recycle streams and with heat integration in order to control the temperature to keep the products quality. The industrial HDT scheme has a lot of potential for process heat integration due to the high temperatures of the catalytic beds effluents and other streams which can be used to preheat cold process streams. Thus, the main objective of this study is to develop process heat integration in a heavy crude oil hydrotreating plant. Experimental data obtained from pilot plant studies, simulations with commercial software, and Pinch analysis are employed to select the best case from an energetic point of view.

References

1. E. Furimsky, Appl. Catal. A 171 (1998) 177-206. 2. J. Ancheyta, G. Betancourt, G. Marroquín, G. Centeno, L.C. Castañeda, F. Alonso, J. A. Muñoz, Ma. T. Gómez, P. Rayo. Appl. Catal. A 233 (2002) 159-170