Recovery of Value Added Products Can Help Survival of Solvent Extraction Unites in a Lube Processing Refinery: A Case Study

TLDR: Sequeira and Dekker as discussed by the authors distilled reduced crude oil (RCO) from the atmospheric distillation unit under a vacuum, yielding varieties of distillates like vacuum gas oil and light to heavy viscous distillate.

Abstract: In a refinery, crude petroleum oil is distilled in an atmospheric column to separate fuel gases and distillates Reduced crude oil (RCO) from the atmospheric distillation unit is further distilled under a vacuum, yielding varieties of distillates like vacuum gas oil and light to heavy viscous distillates In a typical lubricating base oil–producing refinery, viscous distillates from intermediate to heavy are available from such a unit Highly viscous distillate is also recovered from the vacuum residue Solvent extraction takes place (Sequeira and Dekker, 1993c, p 81; 1993b, p 153) next to selectively dearomatize the distillates to yield high viscosity index (VI) oil In order for the pour point to be improved, selective removal of paraffin wax is carried out in a solvent dewaxing unit Finally this dewaxed oil is selectively hydrogenated to remove unwanted sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen and also for improving color Though modern catalytic aromatic saturation and dewaxing (Sequeira and Dekker, 1