Reactor and process for upgrading heavy hydrocarbon oils

Abstract

A reactor for conducting a process using supercritical water to upgrade a heavy hydrocarbon feedstock into an upgraded hydrocarbon product or syncrude with highly desirable properties (low sulfur content, low metals content, lower density (higher API), lower viscosity, lower residuum content, etc.) is described. The reactor is operable under continuous) semi-continuous or batch mode and is equipped with means to enable momentum, heat and mass transfer in and out of and within the reactor.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to upgrading of hydrocarbons, especially heavy hydrocarbons such as whole heavy oil, bitumen, and the like using supercritical water.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Oil produced from a significant number of oil reserves around the world is simply too heavy to flow under ambient conditions. This makes it challenging to bring remote, heavy oil resources closer to the markets. One typical example is the Hamaca field in Venezuela. In order to render such heavy oils flowable, one of the most common methods known in the art is to reduce the viscosity and density by mixing the heavy oil with a sufficient diluent. The diluent may be naphtha, or any other stream with a significantly higher API gravity (i.e., much lower density) than the heavy oil.[0003]For a case such as Hamaca, diluted crude oil is sent from the production wellhead via pipeline to an upgrading facility. Two key operations occur at the upgrading facility: (1) the dil...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0024]The present invention relates to an apparatus for upgrading a hydrocarbon by reaction with a fluid comprising water under supercritical water conditions comprising; means for dispersing and mixing the fluid comprising water and the hydrocarbon under conditions which disfavor thermal cracking and formation of coke; means for injecting a dispersed water-hydrocarbon mixture into a reaction zone under supercritical water conditions; a reaction zone having means for maintaining a uniform temperature within said reaction zone, means for controlling the residence time in the reaction zone within determined limits and means for avoiding the settling of inorganic solids within the reaction zone; and means for recovering an upgraded hydrocarbon.

Problems solved by technology

Oil produced from a significant number of oil reserves around the world is simply too heavy to flow under ambient conditions.

This makes it challenging to bring remote, heavy oil resources closer to the markets.

1. The infrastructure required for the handling, recovery, and recycle of diluent could be expensive, especially over long distances. Diluent availability is another potential issue.

2. Hydrogen-addition processes such as hydrotreating or hydrocracking require significant investments in capital and infrastructure.

3. Hydrogen-addition processes also have high operating costs, since hydrogen production costs are highly sensitive to natural gas prices. Some remote heavy oil reserves may not even have access to sufficient quantities of low-cost: natural gas to support a hydrogen plant. These hydrogen-addition processes also generally require expensive catalysts and resource intensive catalyst handling techniques, including catalyst regeneration.

4. In some cases, the refineries and / or upgrading facilities that are located closest to the production site may have neither the capacity nor the facilities to accept the heavy oil.

5. Coking is often used at refineries or upgrading facilities. Significant amounts of by-product solid coke are rejected during the coking process, leading to lower liquid hydrocarbon yield. In addition, the liquid products from a coking plant often need further hydrotreating. Further, the volume of the product from the coking process is significantly less than the volume of the feed crude oil.

Although the above-mentioned patents disclosed and claimed various methods and processes for heavy oil upgrading using supercritical water, such as operating range of temperature, and pressure, water to oil ratio, etc, none has disclosed the design of the reactor or design related process controls for heavy oil upgrading using supercritical water.

Although organic materials can be destroyed quickly through supercritical water oxidation, inorganic materials are insoluble in supercritical water.

For heavy oil upgrading, the feed is a mixture containing broad range of materials, and the reactions involved are much more complex.

Obviously, reactor design for selective reactions in a complex system is very different and much more challenging than that for non-selective total oxidation.(2) High concentration of feed.

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