Europe's refining industry woes detailed at London meeting

Anne Rhodes
Refining/Petrochemical Editor

Refiners, catalyst producers, engineering firms, and process licensers discussed Europe's refining industry at the first-ever European Refining Technology Conference, Oct. 28-30, London.

Some 400 attendees heard presentations on European Union (EU) environmental legislation, and a variety of processing and catalyst options available to help refiners comply with the regulations (see related article, OGJ, Nov. 4, p. 35).

The conference consisted of two parallel sessions: one covering heavy-ends conversion and a second covering hydroprocessing and other light-ends processes. Each session included nine technical presentations, and a panel discussion in which 12 panelists answered presubmitted questions.

The heavy-ends technical presentations covered topics including: fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) technology and catalysts, bottoms upgrading options, deep-cut distillation techniques, and gasification. The light-ends papers discussed: European air and fuels qualities, catalytic reforming, hydrotreating, biocatalytic desulfurization, hydrocracking, dewaxing, alkylation, and etherification.

Auto/Oil Programme

The light-ends session began with an update on the European Auto/Oil Programme. The paper was presented by BP's John Stapleford, representing Conservation of Clean Air and Water Europe (Concawe), the European oil companies' organization for environment, health, and safety.

Stapleford outlined the European Auto/Oil Programme's strict air-quality targets (Table 1 [41255 bytes]). The European Auto/Oil Programme has determined that these targets can be met. Some of the program's key findings are:

Europe's air quality problems are different than those in the U.S., and require different solutions.
Mandatory use of oxygenates is unnecessary because European cities can easily meet atmospheric carbon monoxide requirements.
European air quality will continue to improve for at least a decade as a result of existing pollution-control measures.
Existing laws will achieve carbon monoxide and benzene targets.
Further measures are needed to meet air quality targets for nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and ground-level ozone, and these measures will reduce carbon monoxide and benzene concentrations even further.
Vehicle technology improvements have a greater impact on emissions than changes in fuel quality.
Vehicle inspection and maintenance programs are extremely cost-effective.

Biocatalytic desulfurization

In addition to conventional technologies, the light-ends processing session included a paper about a novel process for reducing product sulfur. Daniel Monticello of Energy BioSystems Corp., Houston, described his company's process, which uses enzymes to biocatalytically desulfurize fossil fuels.

Energy BioSystems is developing the process in a 5 b/d pilot plant. The catalysts developed to date have reduced diesel sulfur to 570 ppm from about 1,900 ppm, to 314 ppm from 649 ppm, and to 79 ppm from 262 ppm. The process takes place at ambient temperature and pressure.

The company expects to scale up the process beginning in 1997. Monticello says the first commercial units could be operational in 1998.

Heavy ends

The heavy-ends session kicked off with a European perspective on the incentive for bottom-of-the-barrel upgrading projects (see article, p. 53). This paper, by Phil Hunt of Chem Systems Ltd., London, explained the incentives for investing in conversion processes, and the difficulties European refiners may face when justifying these necessary investments. The paper was presented by Chem Systems' Ralph Eley.

As would be expected, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) received heavy attention in the heavy-ends session. BP's Geoff Parker described how European refiners can use improvements in FCC process technologies to meet future specifications for gasoline and diesel products in EU countries.

Parker outlined how BP uses some of these technologies to improve its FCC operations. He also described some areas in which technology improvements are needed.

Another presentation outlined a new "progressive distillation" process that is being installed at the Middeldeutsche Erd"l Raffinerie GmbH refinery under construction in Leuna, Germany. The process, jointly developed by Elf and Technip, uses pinch technology to improve the energy efficiency of the distillation process. Authors of the paper were M. Fromager, J.P. Gourlia, and C. Ptak.

The final paper in this session was presented by Richard Molyneux of Foster Wheeler. Molyneux gave an overview of resid upgrading technology options that can be used to increase refinery profitability. The paper included discussions of resid catalytic cracking, delayed coking, visbreaking, hydrocracking, and solvent deasphalting.