(118e) Processing of Renewable Gasoil in a Steamcracker

The global commitment to reducing climate change and plastic waste in the environment is constantly increasing societal and legislative pressure on petrochemical industry to develop sustainable processes and production routes.

A key option for steam crackers to reducing the carbon footprint of olefins and associated final products is the substitution of fossil oil based feedstocks by sustainably-produced raw materials.

The paper and associated presentation provides an actual overview on recent campaigns with renewable diesel feedstock (Hydrogenated Vegetable Gas Oil, HVGO), which were performed in a commercial steam cracker of an European Petrochemical Site.

It includes a discussion of pre-processing assessments and tasks based on the available feedstock information. As part of a mandatory Management of Change process in a current production infrastructure typical preparation tasks are recommended in order to evaluate operating windows. Furthermore the paper provides a summary of the analysis method, which was applied to establish traceability of processed renewable fractions in the product streams. This is added by an overview on ICCS PLUS based certification and the associated mass balance method.

Finally, the paper compares the outcomes of trials against anticipated aspects of the pre-assessment and proposes according targets for future production trials.