Manufacture of xylenes using reformate

A process for the production of para-xylene, which process comprises:

• (a) providing a reformate comprising:
• (i) hydrogen;
• (ii) C1–C5 hydrocarbons, (iii) C6–C7 aromatic hydrocarbons comprising benzene, tolueno or mixtures thereof (iv) C8+ aromatic hydrocarbons;
• and, (v) and from 0.2 to about 20 weight percent of non-aromatic C6–C8 hydrocarbons based on the weight of the C6–C7 aromatic hydrocarbons present in the reformate;
• and
• (b) methylating at least a portion of said benzene, toluene, or mixtures thereof present in said reformate in a methylation reaction zone with a methylating agent under vapor phase conditions effective for the methylation and in the presence of an acidic molecular sieve catalyst comprising an intermediate pore size molecular sieve to produce a resulting product having a higher xylenes content than said reformate;
• wherein:
• (I) at least 7 weight percent of the benzene and/or toluene present in said reformate is converted to xylenes;and, (II) at least 50 weight percent of said C6–C8 non-aromatic hydrocarbons present in said reformate are cracked to lower molecular weight products.