Current world capacity of FCC light cycle oil (LCO) is approximately 3 million BPD.  In the past, this stream has frequently been blended into the diesel pool despite its poor cetane value and high sulfur content.  However, as requirements for fuel sulfur have become more stringent, this option has become even less attractive.  This relegates the LCO to low value heating and fuel oil pools which are also shrinking markets in many countries.  LCO therefore presents problems for the modern refiner.       

Hydrotreating and hydrocracking have been two of the best suited upgrading technologies used to meet the increasingly challenging clean and reformulated fuels specifications.  UOP has previously introduced the LCO Unicracking^TM process, which provides the opportunity to upgrade LCO to ULSD and high octane gasoline products via hydrotreating and hydrocracking.  The design and flexibility of this process allows the refiner to take advantage of the market situation by shifting conversion to high quality naphtha or distillate.

Recently UOP has introduced LCO-X^TM process to produce xylenes and benzene suitable for petrochemical processing.  After fractionation, high purity benzene and xylene may be taken as products from the process, in addition to LPG, ULSD and light naphtha.  The continued increasing demand for aromatics, especially xylenes, provides attractive economics for this process.