Chemical Engineering May 2011 - 17

Newsfront
Petroleum refining
in the sPotlight
Faced with increasing
competition from abroad
and more environmental
regulations at home,
U.S. refiners look to new
process technology to
remain relevant
M
otorists filling up at U.S.
gasoline stations these days
may think that petroleum
refiners are making good
profits, but it depends on where the
station gets its fuel. The industry is
plagued by overcapacity and is concerned
about government regulations
that call for greater use of renewable
fuels and tougher pollution control.
The National Petrochemical & Refiners
Assn. (NPRA, Washington, D.C.;
www.npra.org) is lobbying strongly in
Washington against pollution-control
regulations it claims are unfair and
impede refiners' ability to produce
fuels economically (see box, p. 18).
Profit margins improved somewhat
in 2010 from a depressed 2009, but refinery
utilizations " continue to hover
in the mid-70s, " says Alan Gelder,
a consultant with Wood Mackenzie
(Houston; www.woodmac.com). Gross
refining margins in the first quarter of
this year ranged from a " super normal "
$12/bbl in the U.S. Gulf Coast for refiners
that have access to low-cost crude,
to only $0.08/bbl in Europe.
The combined North American-European
market has excess capacity of
about 3 million bbl/d, says Gelder, and
even if most of this gap was closed, excess
would remain until at least 2015,
Step 1: Inner stage microsphere
Clay
slurry
Dryer
Calciner
H2O
Step 2: Outer stage microsphere
Clay slurry
+ alumina
+ Inner stage MS Dryer
Alumina free
Inner stage MS
(~65 µm)
Step 3: Zeolite crystallization and after-treatment
Microsphere
caustic
silicate
Base
Na-Y
exchange
Rare-earth
exchange
Calciner
Multi-stage
reaction
catalyst
Figure 1. BASF has developed a three-step manufacturing process to produce its
staged catalysts (MS = microsphere)
as previously deferred new capacity
comes online. The U.S. Gulf Coast and
northwestern Europe, where most of
those continents' refining capacities
are located, each has crude distillation
capacity of about 8.9 million bbl/d (the
two markets are intertwined, with the
U.S. importing gasoline from Europe
and exporting diesel fuel). Another
problem for U.S. refiners is a growing
shortage of heavy crude from Mexico
and Venezuela - this after refiners
had invested heavily in heavy-crudeupgrading
equipment in recent years.
Meanwhile, the potential recovery of
the U.S. refining industry may be derailed
by lower-cost imports from large
new refineries that are being built or
are planned in Asia and the Middle
East, says Rich Thomas, senior consultant
with Baker & O'Brien, Inc. (Houston;
www.bakerobrien.com). By 2015,
the Middle East and India will have
about 5 million bbl/d of export capacity.
This includes several refineries in
Saudi Arabia and the Reliance refinery
in Jamnagar, India. The latter is " the
single largest grassroots refinery ever
built, " with more than 1 million bbl/d of
combined capacity, says Thomas.
Thomas and Gelder spoke at the
recent NPRA annual meeting in San
Antonio, Tex. Most meeting sessions focused
on refinery operations and technology.
Several companies offered new
technologies for fluid catalytic cracking
(FCC), alkylation and distillation.
New FCC technology
Staged reactions normally take place
over fixed catalyst beds, but BASF
Corp. (Houston; www.catalysts.basf.
com) has developed multistage reaction
catalysts for FCC. In this case,
the catalyst itself contains multiple
stages (Figure 1), each of which has
a specific catalytic function, explains
Alexis Shackleford, a BASF technical
service engineer. BASF's initial offering
is Fortress, a two-stage catalyst designed
for residual feeds that contain
traces of nickel, which is detrimental
to catalyst performance. The catalyst's
two functions are to crack the resid
and passivate the nickel.
As in conventional catalysis, a specialty
alumina in the catalyst traps
the nickel and forms nickel aluminate.
ChemiCal engineering www.Che.Com may 2011 17
Calciner
Two-Stage MS
(~80 µm)
H2O
http://www.npra.org http://www.catalysts.basf http://www.woodmac.com http://www.bakerobrien.com http://www.Che.Com
Chemical Engineering May 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering May 2011
