Objective:
Oman Oil Company produces 100,000 barrels per day of Mukhaizna Heavy Crude Oil at its Mukhaizna oil reserve in the Sultanate of Oman. Since this type of heavy crude has a low value and causes difficulties for pipeline transportation, Oman Oil Company plans to have Genoil to upgrade it with Genoil’s patented Genoil Hydroconversion Upgrader (GHU) technology for the purpose of converting the Mukhaizna Heavy Crude Oil into light products, reducing sulphur, nitrogen and other compounds contained in the crude, and to increase its overall exporting value price in the market.
Proposal:
The proposed Genoil Upgrader consists of the proprietary GHU and an Integrated Gasification and Combined Cycle (IGCC) section. By integrating with gasification and balance the pitch conversion with hydrogen and utility demands, Genoil’s unique, zero-waste, environment-friendly process can desulfurize heavy, sour crude oil and with maximized profitability, efficiently convert it to light, sweet, crude oil, which enables the GHU and the overall Upgrader to become a truly bottomless, self-sufficient facility .
Feedstock Analysis:
Based on the provided crude oil information, Mukhaizna heavy crude is very viscous, with high density, high acidity, and produced by horizontal steam-flood technology. According to the nature of the crude, it could be sorted to the category of highly viscous, with high sulphur content, tertiary recovery heavy crude. It is one of the toughest stocks to processes employed by today’s refineries.
Based on the expertise of Genoil Research & Development team, GHU could be used to process Mukhaizna heavy crude and produce synthetic crude with higher API degree, lower viscosity, and less sulphur content. First of all, the metal content (Ni + V = 69ppm) of the crude is in the affordable range of the hydrotreating system. A longer running life-expectancy could be anticipated. Secondly, although the sulphur content in the Mukhaizna heavy crude is more than 3%, GHU could decrease it significantly, at least, the sulphur content in the product of GHU could meet the specifications of the light crudes sold in the market.
Engineering Solution
Based on the supplied information of crude production and oil properties of Mukhaizna Heavy Crude Oil, the Oman Export blend and Mukhaizna Crude Oil were evaluated. It is recommended that the optimal treatment point should be Mukhaizna field, which means the best choice is to build field GHU plants. After upgrading treatment, GHU product oil could be mixed with light oil at Nahada gathering station, and then the blending crude goes to MaF export point.
One proposed merchant upgrader near a remote oil field consists of GHU upgrader and an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle unit (IGCC). The GHU converts the heavy petroleum feed into lighter products with the reduction of sulphur, nitrogen, metals and other compounds. After fractionation, the bottom product (heaviest portion) from GHU is a stable, high calorific, liquid residual stream suitable for gasification, which in turn produces hydrogen to support the hydrogenation process and the utilities such as fuel gas, electrical power and steam to run the whole upgrading facility.
Considering the 100 KBPD of Mukhaizna Heavy Crude Oil, two sets of upgraders are recommended with capacity of 50 KBPD each.
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Table 1 GHU Product Slate
| Product | BPD |
| Gasoline | 13234 |
| Diesel | 18046 |
| Gas Oil | 60320 |
| Total SCO | 91600 |
Table 2 Comparison between Feedstock and GHU Product
| | Feedstock | GHU Product SCO |
| BPD | 100,000 | 91,600 |
| API | 15.6 | 27.5 |
| | 3.48 | 0.07 |
The preliminary simulation showed that, after GHU & IGCC treatment, the sulphur has been greatly removed as well as the reduction of nitrogen, metal contents. So it is good for pipeline transportation and increases its value price. The process route is as follows,
Again, it is noted the above data are roughly estimated through simulation. In order to get more accurate results, the pilot test is required.
Cost-Benefit Analyses
As described above, to process 100 KBPD heavy crude, two sets of GHU plants are required. For each set of plant (capacity of 50 KBPD), the cost estimate is as follows,
| Unit | Cost ( Million US $) |
| GHU | 99.56 |
| SGU | 52.57 |
| ASU | 24.10 |
| HRU | 16.28 |
| SRU | 57.88 |
| CCU | 39.03 |
| UTILITY & OFFSITE | 57.88 |
| Sub-total | 347.30 |