High conversion hydroprocessing

An integrated hydroprocessing method having at least two stages, each stage having at least one reaction zone and the second stage having an intermediate effluent and a bottoms effluent, said method comprising the following steps:

• (a) combining an oil feed with a hydrogen-rich gas stream to form a feedstock;
• (b) passing the feedstock to a reaction zone of the first stage, which is maintained at conditions sufficient to effect a boiling range conversion and contacting it with hydroprocessing catalyst;
• (c) passing the effluent of step (b) to a hot high pressure separator, where it is combined with the bottoms effluent of the second stage and separated into an overhead fraction and bottoms fraction;
• (d) mixing the overhead fraction of step (c) with the intermediate effluent from the second stage to form a combined stream which is passed to a cold high pressure separator;
• (e) separating the combined stream of step (d) into a gaseous component, a hydrocarbon liquid stream and a sour water stream;
• (f) passing the gaseous component of step (e), which comprises hydrogen, to a recycle gas compressor;
• (g) combining the hydrocarbon liquid stream of step (e) with an overhead stream from a hot low pressure separator;
• (h) passing the stream of step (g) to a cold low pressure separator, where it is separated into an overhead stream, which is subsequently fractionated into hydrogen and other product streams, and a bottoms stream, which is combined with a bottoms effluent of the hot low pressure separator from step (g);
• (i) passing the bottoms fraction of step (c) to the hot low pressure separator of step (g), where it is separated into the overhead stream of step (g) and into the bottoms effluent of step (h);
• (j) passing the combined stream of step (h) to a product stripper, in which the stream is contacted counter-currently with steam to produce an overhead stream and a bottoms stream;
• (k) passing the bottoms stream of step (j) to fractionation, thereby producing product streams and a bottoms stream;
• and
• (l) recycling the bottoms of step (k) to a reaction zone of the second stage, which is maintained at conditions sufficient to effect a boiling range conversion, and contacting it with hydroprocessing catalyst.