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Abstract
Future worldwide crude supply projections indicate a shortage of high-quality, low-sulfur crudes. Figure 1 shows that the sulfur, gravity, and l000+°F material will continue to degrade the quality of crude oil for U.S. refiners [1]. The availability of more plentiful, heavier high-sulfur crudes creates several problems for the refiner. First, processing facilities are required to remove sulfur from the various fractions in the crude, and secondly, conversion facilities are required to convert the concentrations of 1000 + °F resid to more valuable products such as gasoline and distillates. In a conventional refinery, the vacuum resid (1000 + °F) is sold either as residual fuel or as asphalt, or it is thermally processed in cokers to produce coker liquids for further processing, and low-value petroleum coke. Because of the reduced markets for residual fuel, asphalt, and coke, refiners have had to install expensive conversion facilities to deal with the larger volumes of vacuum resids from poorer quality crudes.