Effect of Crude Oil Quality on Properties of Hydrocracked Vacuum Residue and Its Blends with Cutter Stocks to Produce Fuel Oil

The production of heavy fuel oil from hydrocracked vacuum residue requires dilution of the residue with cutter stocks to reduce viscosity. The hydrocracked residue obtained from different vacuum residue blends originating from diverse crude oils may have divergent properties and interact with the variant cutter stocks in a dissimilar way leading to changeable values of density, sediment content, and viscosity of the obtained fuel oil. H-Oil hydrocracked vacuum residues (VTBs) obtained from different crude blends (Urals, Siberian Light (LSCO), and Basrah Heavy) were diluted with the high aromatic fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) light cycle, heavy cycle, and slurry oil, and the low aromatic fluid catalytic cracking feed hydrotreater diesel cutter stocks and their densities, sediment content, and viscosity of the mixtures were investigated. Intercriteria analysis evaluation of the data generated in this study was performed. It was found that the densities of the blends H-Oil VTB/cutter stocks deviate from the regular solution behavior because of the presence of attractive and repulsive forces between the molecules of the H-Oil VTB and the cutter stocks. Urals and Basrah Heavy crude oils were found to enhance the attractive forces, while the LSCO increases the repulsive forces between the molecules of H-Oil VTBs and those of the FCC gas oils. The viscosity of the H-Oil VTB obtained during hydrocracking of straight run vacuum residue blend was established to linearly depend on the viscosity of the H-Oil vacuum residue feed blend. The applied equations to predict viscosity of blends containing straight run and hydrocracked vacuum residues and cutter stocks proved their good prediction ability with an average relative absolute deviation (%AAD) of 8.8%. While the viscosity was found possible to predict, the sediment content of the blends H-Oil VTBs/cutter stocks was recalcitrant to forecast.

Automated summary

The properties of hydrocracked vacuum residue and cutter stocks have an impact on the density, sediment content, and viscosity of the obtained fuel oil. Different crude oil blends and cutter stocks interact with each other in different ways, resulting in varying values of these properties. The density of the blends deviates from regular solution behavior due to attractive and repulsive forces between the molecules. The viscosity of hydrocracked vacuum residue is linearly dependent on the viscosity of the vacuum residue feed blend. Equations used to predict viscosity show good prediction ability with an average deviation of 8.8%, while predicting sediment content remains challenging.