Process for demetallization of whole crude oil
AssigneeSaudi Arabian Oil Company
InventorsOmer Refa Koseoglu, Adnan Al-Hajji, Hendrik Muller
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A crude oil feedstream is treated to remove or reduce the content of undesired metal components including nickel and/or vanadium by contacting the feedstream with one or more solid adsorbent materials selected from attapulgus clay, alumina, silica gel and activated carbon in a mixing vessel for a time that is sufficient to optimize the adsorption of the undesired metal components from the crude oil, subjecting the mixture to atmospheric flash distillation and then to vacuum flash distillation to recover presorted boiling ranges of products having a lowered content of the undesired metal components, and preferably regenerating at least a portion of the solid adsorbent material for reuse in the process.
Claims14
A method for upgrading crude oil to reduce the content of undesired metal components including nickel and/or vanadium that comprises:
- a. mixing the crude oil with solid adsorbent particles that is an absorbent for the metal components for a sufficient time and under conditions to adsorb the undesired metal components to produce a mixture of crude oil and solid adsorbent material;
- b. subjecting the mixture produced in step (a) to atmospheric flash distillation and separating and removing distillates having an initial boiling point of 36° C. and a final boiling point between 350° C. and 400° C.;
- c. transferring bottoms from the atmospheric distillation of step (b) to a vacuum flash distillation vessel and subjecting the bottoms from the atmospheric distillation to vacuum flash distillation, and separating and removing distillates having an initial boiling point between 350° C. and 480° C. and a final boiling point between 480° C. and 560° C.;
- d. regenerating at least a portion of the solid adsorbent particles contained in the bottoms from the vacuum distillation vessel;
- and
- e. recovering and returning the regenerated solid adsorbent particles for re-use in step (a).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.