Flexicoking: An Industrial Process for Converting Heavy Oils to Valuable Products

Flexicocking
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Flexicoking
Flexicoking is an industrial process which is designed to convert large volumes of high boiling
petroleum fractions into light hydrocarbons that are valuable, coke and some low sulfur fuel
gas. However, the coke produced in this process is quite different from the coke produced by
other processes such as delayed coking or fluid coking (Wormsbecker, Wiens, Mcmillan,
McKnight, Knapper, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co, 2016 ).
This process is commercially proven and it consists of a fluid bed technology that can thermally
convert these heavy oils which include oil sands bitumen, atmospheric residue, vacuum reside
and heavy whole crudes to more valuable products. The process is integrated and it avails a
wider flexibility when upgrading residuum, which produces both clean liquid products and fuel
gas. It generally acts as an economical source of fuel for boilers and refinery furnaces.
Process
The raw materials for this process include vacuum reside, atmosphere resides, oil sand bitumen
and heavy whole crudes among others (Mingjiang, Ligang, Xiaoguang, 2013). These materials
act as the feed. In the process, the feed, through the scrubber, undergoes a direct contact heat
exchange with a reactor that is overhead effluent vapors. The high boiling hydrocarbons that
are in the reactor effluent are condensed by the scrubber and recycled along with the fresh
feed to the reactor. The feed while in the reactor is thermally cracked to produce coke to and a
full range of liquid products. During the process, the amount of coke is maintained by the
transfer of bed coke from the reactor to the heater.