Chevron's Pascagoula residuum hydrotreater demonstrates versatility

Even before the implementation of the recent Residuum Conversion Project, the Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. was a notable example of a modern complex refinery. The integration of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and Chevron's hydrocracking process, ISOCRACKING, allowed the upgrading of a variety of crudes to give varying product slates in response to marketplace demands. The residuum conversion facility, comprising a 96,000 BPOD Chevron Residuum Hydrotreater (RDS), a 3200 Ton/day delayed coker, and a 37,000 BPOD Chevron Coker Gas Oil HDN unit, has significantly extended this flexibility. It has allowed the refinery to handle the heavier crudes now economically attractive, whilst maintaining production of light products. The heart of the operation is the RDS unit. Although originally designed for severe hydrotreating of 760/sup 0/F+ atmospheric residuum from Arabian Heavy crude, it has subsequently demonstrated the capability to process a variety of heavy feedstocks, including vacuum gas oils, coker gas oils and vacuum residua.