Catalytic remedy for advanced UCO bleed reduction in recycle hydrocracking operations

A two-stage hydrocracking process with recycle for converting a petroleum feed to lower boiling products, which process comprises:

• hydrotreating a petroleum feed comprising ARDS VGO in the presence of hydrogen to produce a hydrotreated effluent stream comprising a liquid product in a first reactor column;
• (ii) passing at least a portion of the hydrotreated effluent stream to a distillation column;
• (iii) passing at least a portion of a bottoms fraction of the distillation column to a hydrocracking stage comprising more than one reaction zone in a second reactor column, with the fraction passed to a first reaction zone in the hydrocracking stage in the second reactor column, with the first reaction zone comprising a self-supported multi-metallic catalyst prepared form a precursor in the hydroxide form, the first reaction zone being the top level of the hydrocracking stage in the second reactor column, to produce a first hydrocracked effluent stream;
• (iv) passing the first hydrocracked effluent stream to a second reaction zone of the hydrocracking stage, and recovering a bottoms fraction from the hydrocracking stage;
• (v) recycling a portion of the bottoms fraction recovered to the distillation column in (ii) or the hydrotreated effluent stream passed to the distillation column;
• and
• (vi) passing a minimized portion of the bottoms fraction in (iv) to an FCC unit.