(60a) Optimizing Bitumen Upgrading Scheme – Modeling and Simulation Approach

Jinwen Chen and Mugurel Munteanu

CanmetENERGY, Natural Resources Canada

One Oil Patch Drive, Devon, AB, T9G 1A8, Canada

Production of transportation fuels from Canadian bitumen feedstocks requires either new integrated upgrading, construction of new refining facilities, or existing refineries using conventional crudes must be converted to allow higher input of bitumen feedstocks into their processing plants. In each case, it is important and useful to optimize the whole upgrading and refining scheme under different process configurations and product scenarios to achieve best economic benefits and at the same time, to minimize the process related energy intensity/consumption. Such information can provide guidelines to either existing upgrading and refining operations or process design of new upgraders and refineries.

The present study focuses on modeling and simulation of the bitumen upgrading and refining schemes using the HYSYS modeling software in conjunction with pilot plant experimental data obtained at CanmetENERGY, as well as any available commercial operation data. Two existing upgrading schemes were investigated: coking-based and hydroconversion-based, which are more fully explored in literature surveys and data reported by oil sands companies. The major upgrading units, atmospheric and vacuum distillation columns, coker/hydroconverter, and hydrotreaters, were depicted in details and the commercial operating conditions for each of them were identified.

The coking-based upgrading scheme was simulated under various operating scenarios. Using existing data, mass balance was performed and a synthetic crude oil yield close to 82% was achieved based on the initial diluted bitumen feedstock. The hydroconversion-based upgrading scheme was also studied in this work by replacing the coker with a hydroconverter (an ebullated bed reactor) and the utilization of commercially available data under different operating conditions.