Prospects of refinery switching from conventional to integrated: An opportunity for sustainable investment in the petrochemical industry

Prospects of refinery switching from conventional to integrated: An opportunity for sustainable investment in the petrochemical industry

Crude oil

Heavy oil

Zeolite

Refining

Integration

Hydroconversion

Olefin

In recent years, the oil market has witnessed high volatility due to unstable demand and supply. Considering the price volatility and stricter environmental regulations, there is a possibility of a decline in the demand for transportation fuels, which will force refiners to explore alternate ways to improve the yield of high-value products, to keep their margins high. In recent years, demand for petrochemicals has witnessed tremendous growth, and there is a dynamic market for olefins and monomeric (building blocks) hydrocarbons. The emerging virgin crude-to-chemicals (CTC) technology can provide an opportunity for integrating operational refineries with chemicals. The integration of refining with the production of high value-petrochemicals can lead to a framework that will add value to both sectors (upstream and downstream). Integration has been proven to be environmentally driven by utilizing various refinery waste and by-products. The importance of thermal and catalytic processes in the integrated refinery is high, particularly the process of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) that generates electricity and by-product as a feedstock for chemicals. On the other hand, high demand for petrochemicals indicated a predictable growth in recent years, mainly driven by the commodity product requirement. Hence, this review critically discusses the current oil price variation, heavy oil production, and technical challenges to convert heavy crude to chemical (c-t-c) or petrochemical (c-t-p). Moreover, considerable flexibility is emphasized as a holistic approach to deal with unconventional feedstock (using thermal and catalytic methods) to produce sustainable feed for the chemical and petrochemicals.

122161

310

Fuel

2022

2022-02-15

Al-Samhan, Meshal

Al-Fadhli, Jamal

Al-Otaibi, Ahmad M.

Al-Attar, Fatma

Bouresli, Rashed

Rana, Mohan S.

journalArticle

0016-2361

10.1016/j.fuel.2021.122161

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236121020378