Even carbon number paraffin composition and method of manufacturing same

A method comprising:

• feeding naturally occurring fatty acids and esters to a slurry bubble column reactor containing a gas phase and a catalyst in a slurry phase, where the catalyst comprises nickel, molybdenum, cobalt, tungsten, or a combination of any two or more thereof, and the catalyst has an equivalent particle diameter of about 10 microns to about 400 microns;
• partially hydrogenating/hydrogenolyzing the naturally occurring fatty acids and esters in the slurry bubble column reactor to produce a partially converted product;
• transferring the partially converted product to a fixed-bed reactor;
• hydrogenating/hydrogenolyzing the partially converted product in the fixed-bed reactor;
• and
• withdrawing a liquid product stream from the reactor;
• wherein
• the slurry bubble column reactor contains the catalyst in an amount of 1% to 30% based on dry bulk catalyst volume per total slurry volume;
• the slurry bubble column reactor is controlled to be within 315° C. to 343° C. and within 200 psig to about 2,000 psig;
• and
• the liquid product stream comprises at least 75 wt % even carbon number paraffins selected from the C12-C24 range.