Virgin Heavy Gas Oil from Oil Sands Bitumen as FCC Feed

This study deals with a systematic investigation of the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) performance of a bitumen-derived virgin heavy gas oil (HGO) in the presence of its counterpart from bitumen-derived synthetic crude oil (SCO). The objective is to determine the amelioration effect on yield and product slate by the addition of the premium SCO HGO. The 343-525 degrees C cut virgin bitumen HGO was obtained from distillation of a raw Athabasca oil sands bitumen. It was then blended with different amounts of the 343 degrees C+ fraction of commercial SCO. Four HGO blends were prepared containing 75, 64, 61, and 48 v% of SCO HGO. Each HGO blend, as well as 100% SCO HGO, were catalytically cracked at 500 and 520 degrees C using a bench-scale Advanced Cracking Evaluation (ACE) unit. The results show acceptable FCC performance of bitumen virgin HGO when an adequate amount of SCO HGO is added. However, the resulting liquid product may need some quality improvement before use. Several observations, including catalyst poisoning by feed nitrogen and the refractory nature of virgin HGO, are evident and help to explain some observed cracking phenomena.