In a hydrocracking process, the product from the first stage reactor passes through a steam stripper to remove hydrogen, H.sub.2S, NH.sub.3, light gases (C.sub.1-C.sub.4), naphtha and diesel products. The stripper bottoms are separated from hydrogen, H.sub.2S, NH.sub.3, light gases (C.sub.1-C.sub.4), naphtha, and diesel products and treated in a second stage reactor. The effluent stream from the second stage reactor, along with the stream of separated hydrogen, H.sub.2S, NH.sub.3, light gases (C.sub.1-C.sub.4), naphtha, and diesel products, are passed to a separation stage for separating petroleum fractions. Preferably, the effluent stream from the first stage reactor is passed through a steam generator prior to the steam stripping step. In an alternate embodiment, the effluent stream from the first stage reactor is passed through a vapor/liquid separator stripper vessel prior to the steam stripping step.

Processes herein may be used to thermally crack various hydrocarbon feeds, and may eliminate the refinery altogether while making the crude to chemicals process very flexible in terms of crude. In embodiments herein, crude is progressively separated into at least light and heavy fractions. Depending on the quality of the light and heavy fractions, these are routed to one of three upgrading operations, including a fixed bed hydroconversion unit, a fluidized catalytic conversion unit, or a residue hydrocracking unit that may utilize an ebullated bed reactor. Products from the upgrading operations may be used as feed to a steam cracker.

In the field of oil sands processing, a process for heating an oil sands slurry stream such as bitumen froth containing bitumen and water and having variable heating requirements includes injecting steam directly into the froth at a steam pressure through a plurality of nozzles to achieve sonic steam flow; operating the plurality of the nozzles to vary steam injection by varying a number of the nozzles through which the injecting of the steam occurs in response to the variable heating requirements; and subjecting the oil sands slurry stream to backpressure sufficient to enable sub-cooling relative to the boiling point of water. A corresponding system is also provided.

Disclosed herein are methods for producing hydrocarbons from a subterranean reservoir that is penetrated by an injection well and a production well. The methods comprise operating the injection well under a set of injection parameters and operating the production well under a set of production parameters to produce a production fluid that has an API gravity that changes over time (ΔAPI) as the method is advanced towards an ultimate recovery factor (RF.sub.o,u) for the reservoir. The methods further comprises modulating the injection parameters, the production parameters, or a combination thereof to decrease or increase the API gravity of the production fluid depending on whether ΔAPI and RF.sub.o,u satisfy a set of requirements as disclosed herein.

A burner sub-system, a furnace comprising the same, a fuel combustion process and steam cracking process carried out in the furnace. The burner sub-system comprises a barrier wall segment between the burner tip and the flue-gas recirculation (“FGR”) duct, effectively blocking direct gas flow between the burner tip and the FGR duct opening, but without encircling the whole burner tip. The presence of the partial barrier wall has the advantage of preventing the temperature inside the FGR duct from becoming too high, while achieving low NOx emissions from the combustion process without overheating the burner tip because of reduced amount of heat reflection to the burner tip compared to an annular barrier wall. The invention is particularly useful in furnaces where hydrogen-rich fuel gas is combusted.

A hydrocarbon material may be processed by a method that includes separating the hydrocarbon material into at least a lesser boiling point fraction, a medium boiling point fraction, and a greater boiling point fraction. The method may further include steam cracking at least a portion of the lesser boiling point fraction, catalytically cracking at least a portion of the medium boiling point fraction, and hydrocracking at least a portion of the greater boiling point fraction.

Processes for preparing a low particulate liquid hydrocarbon product are provided and includes blending a tar stream containing particles with a fluid to produce a fluid-feed mixture containing tar, the particles, and the fluid, where the fluid-feed mixture contains about 30 wt % or greater of the fluid based on a combined weight of the tar stream and the fluid. The method also includes separating, e.g., by centrifuging, from the fluid-feed mixture a higher density portion and a lower density portion, where the lower density portion contains no more than 25 wt % of the particles in the fluid-feed mixture, based on the weight of the particles in the fluid-feed mixture.

In producing C.sub.2-C.sub.4 olefins, in particular propylene, from an educt mixture containing steam and oxygenates, such as methanol and/or dimethyl ether, the educt mixture is reacted in a reactor on a catalyst to a reaction mixture comprising low-molecular olefins and gasoline hydrocarbons, which in a first separating device is separated into a mixture rich in C.sub.5− olefins, a mixture rich in C.sub.5+ gasoline hydrocarbons, and an aqueous phase. To increase the yield of propylene the mixture rich in C.sub.5+ gasoline hydrocarbons is supplied to a second separating device, in which the aromatics contained in the mixture are separated. The residual stream largely free from aromatics is at least partly recirculated to the reactor.

A method and system remove hydrogen sulfide from a sour liquid. In an embodiment, the method for removing hydrogen sulfide from a hydrocarbon containing fluid includes contacting a methylmorpholine-N-oxide solution with the sour liquid. The method also includes allowing the methylmorpholine-N-oxide to react with the hydrogen sulfide to remove the hydrogen sulfide.

A process for producing light olefins and aromatics, which comprises reacting a feedstock by contacting with a catalytic cracking catalyst in at least two reaction zones, wherein the reaction temperature of at least one reaction zone among the reaction zones downstream of the first reaction zone is higher than that of the first reaction zone and its weight hourly space velocity is lower than that of the first reaction zone, separating the spent catalyst from the reaction product vapor, regenerating the separated spent catalyst and returning the regenerated catalyst to the reactor, and separating the reaction product vapor to obtain the desired products, light olefins and aromatics. This process produces maximum light olefins such as propylene, ethylene, etc from heavy feedstocks, wherein the yield of propylene exceeds 20% by weight, and produces aromatics such as toluene, xylene, etc at the same time.