A refinery built around a slurry phase hydrocracking process unit, such as a Veba Combi-Cracker (VCC), is simpler, produces more liquid product as transportation fuels and has much higher net cash margin than a refinery built around a coker or other bottoms upgrading processes. The VCC unit replaces one or more processing steps normally included in refineries as separate and distinct processing units including heavy distillate/gas oil cracking and optionally bottoms upgrading and deep desulfurization of diesel and gasoline range cuts. The refinery design is especially suited for heavy crude upgrading and can be tuned to provide a wide range of gasoline to distillate production ratios. The refinery design is bottomless in the sense that it produces no heavy fuel oil or asphalt as product and no solid fuel (e.g., petroleum coke).

Provided herein are supercritical upgrading reactors and reactor systems for upgrading a petroleum-based composition by using one or more supercritical upgrading reactors and one or more supercritical standby reactors that alternate functions such that the supercritical upgrading reactor is converted to a supercritical standby reactor and the supercritical standby reactor is converted to a supercritical upgrading reactor. The supercritical upgrading reactor upgrades a combined feed stream while a supercritical standby reactor delivers a cleaning fluid into the supercritical standby reactor. The supercritical reactors may have one or more catalyst layers and one or more purging fluid inlets, and the catalyst layers may have differing void volume ratios.

Provided herein are supercritical upgrading reactors and reactor systems for upgrading a petroleum-based composition by using one or more supercritical upgrading reactors and one or more supercritical standby reactors that alternate functions such that the supercritical upgrading reactor is converted to a supercritical standby reactor and the supercritical standby reactor is converted to a supercritical upgrading reactor. The supercritical upgrading reactor upgrades a combined feed stream while a supercritical standby reactor delivers a cleaning fluid into the supercritical standby reactor. The supercritical reactors may have one or more catalyst layers and one or more purging fluid inlets, and the catalyst layers may have differing void volume ratios.

The present disclosure generally relates to upgrading difficult to process heavy-oil. In particular, the disclosure relates to upgrading heavy oil and other high carbon content materials by using an integrated thermal-process (ITP) that utilizes anti-coking management and toluene insoluble organic residues (TIOR) management to directly incorporate lighter hydrocarbons into high molecular weight, low hydrogen content hydrocarbons such as thermally processed heavy oil products. This process can be integrated with other thermal processing schemes, such as cokers and visbreakers, to improve the conversion and yields from these integrated processes.

A process for producing C2 and C3 hydrocarbons by a) subjecting a mixed hydrocarbon stream comprising a middle distillate to first hydrocracking to produce a first hydrocracking product stream, b) subjecting a second hydrocracking feed stream to second hydrocracking to produce a second hydrocracking product stream, wherein the second hydrocracking is more severe than the first hydrocracking and c) subjecting a C4 hydrocracking feed stream to C4 hydrocracking optimized for converting C4 hydrocarbons into C3 hydrocarbons in the presence of a C4 hydrocracking catalyst to obtain a C4 hydrocracking product stream, wherein the C4 hydrocracking is more severe than the second hydrocracking. The first hydrocracking product stream, the second hydrocracking product stream and the C4 hydrocracking product stream are fed to a separation system.

A process for producing C2 and C3 hydrocarbons by a) subjecting a mixed hydrocarbon stream comprising a middle distillate to first hydrocracking to produce a first hydrocracking product stream, b) subjecting a second hydrocracking feed stream to second hydrocracking to produce a second hydrocracking product stream, wherein the second hydrocracking is more severe than the first hydrocracking and c) subjecting a C4 hydrocracking feed stream to C4 hydrocracking optimized for converting C4 hydrocarbons into C3 hydrocarbons in the presence of a C4 hydrocracking catalyst to obtain a C4 hydrocracking product stream, wherein the C4 hydrocracking is more severe than the second hydrocracking. The first hydrocracking product stream, the second hydrocracking product stream and the C4 hydrocracking product stream are fed to a separation system.

Processes for producing olefins include integration of steam cracking with a dual catalyst metathesis process. The processes include steam cracking a hydrocarbon feed to form a cracking reaction effluent containing butenes, separating the cracking reaction effluent to produce a cracking C4 effluent including normal butenes, isobutene, and 1,3-butadiene, subjecting the cracking C4 effluent to selective hydrogenation to convert 1,3-butadiene in the cracking C4 effluent to normal butenes, removing isobutene from a hydrogenation effluent to produce a metathesis feed containing normal butenes, and contacting the metathesis feed with a metathesis catalyst and a cracking catalyst directly downstream of the metathesis catalyst to produce a metathesis reaction effluent. Contacting with the metathesis catalyst causes metathesis of normal butenes to produce ethylene, propene, and C5+ olefins, and contacting with the cracking catalyst causes C5+ olefins produced through metathesis to undergo cracking reactions to produce additional propene, ethylene, or both.

Processes for producing olefins include integration of steam cracking with a dual catalyst metathesis process. The processes include steam cracking a hydrocarbon feed to form a cracking reaction effluent containing butenes, separating the cracking reaction effluent to produce a cracking C4 effluent including normal butenes, isobutene, and 1,3-butadiene, subjecting the cracking C4 effluent to selective hydrogenation to convert 1,3-butadiene in the cracking C4 effluent to normal butenes, removing isobutene from a hydrogenation effluent to produce a metathesis feed containing normal butenes, and contacting the metathesis feed with a metathesis catalyst and a cracking catalyst directly downstream of the metathesis catalyst to produce a metathesis reaction effluent. Contacting with the metathesis catalyst causes metathesis of normal butenes to produce ethylene, propene, and C5+ olefins, and contacting with the cracking catalyst causes C5+ olefins produced through metathesis to undergo cracking reactions to produce additional propene, ethylene, or both.

Systems and methods are provided for integration of polymeric waste co-processing in cokers to produce circular chemical products from coker gas oil, including a method of producing circular chemical products comprising: providing a coker gas oil that is at least partially derived from polymeric waste, wherein the coker gas oil has a paraffin content of about 5 wt % to about 50 wt %, a sulfur content of about 0.1 wt % to about 7 wt %, and a halide content of about 0.1 wppm to about 5 wppm; and converting the coker gas oil into at least a polymer.

Systems and methods are provided for integration of polymeric waste co-processing in cokers to produce circular chemical products from coker gas oil, including a method of producing circular chemical products comprising: providing a coker gas oil that is at least partially derived from polymeric waste, wherein the coker gas oil has a paraffin content of about 5 wt % to about 50 wt %, a sulfur content of about 0.1 wt % to about 7 wt %, and a halide content of about 0.1 wppm to about 5 wppm; and converting the coker gas oil into at least a polymer.