Impact of low-sulphur bunkers

on refineries
Proposed IMO global sulphur specifications on bunker fuels market and options
available to reduce fuel oil sulphur are reviewed

Mike Stockle and Tina Knight Foster Wheeler Energy Limited

T
he International Maritime Organisation specifications are shown in Figure 1. As can be
(IMO) recently announced that it is seen, the proposed changes would see significant
supporting a move to a global sulphur changes in fuel oil sulphur content, with the
specification on bunkers of 0.5 wt%, with certain allowable sulphur content in bunkers reducing
environmentally sensitive areas moving to even from 4.5–0.5 wt% (almost a 90% reduction) and
lower sulphur levels. Foster Wheeler has exam- the allowable level in SECAs reducing from 1.5–
ined the impact this could have on a typical 0.1 wt% (an almost 95% reduction). These
European refinery configuration and operation, changes will give refiners a number of significant
with a series of worked examples that focus on challenges, which will vary for each region and
various refinery configurations, and shows how refinery. If adopted, they could be particularly
these configurations could be adapted to meet challenging for European refiners, since much of
the new specifications. Changes to refinery oper- Europe’s bunker fuel market will be into SECAs,
ation in terms of blending and crude selection as the two current SECA regions are the Baltic
are considered, as are options for residue Sea and the North Sea and English Channel.
upgrading to meet a 0.5 wt% fuel oil specifica-
tion, or to move out of the fuel market altogether. Fuel oil markets
A view is taken of what exactly should be consid- The world fuel oil markets for the coming years
ered with the increased upgrading required to are shown in Figure 2, as predicted by Wood
meet 0.5 wt% bunkers in terms of refinery Mackenzie. It can be seen that bunkers currently
investment, price of bunkers and impact on make up about 30% of the world fuel oil market
other key refinery considera-
tions such as CO2 emissions.

This specification would
present a significant bunker 

fuels sulphur content reduc- 

Main Main delayed
tion over the coming years, 
3ULPHURWT

which is why the potential 

impacts these changes could 
have on fuel oil markets and 
on the operation and configu- 
SECAs
ration of refineries are 
discussed. 

           
IMO targets
9EAR
Proposed changes to the stand-
ard and SOx emission control
areas (SECAs) bunker fuel Figure 1 Proposed IMO bunker fuel specifications

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090 Catalysis 2009 1

 level of desulphurisation in fuel
 oil.
"UNKERS According to information
 )NLAND from Wood Mackenzie, current

global demand for bunkers is
focused on Asia Pacific (38%)
 and Greater Europe (33%). A
proportion of the demand will
-4!


be in SECAs and this low

sulphur bunker demand will
increase if the number of
 SECAs increases.

           Discussion of options
9EAR Source: Wood Mackenzie A number of potential options
exist to reduce either fuel oil
Figure 2 World fuel oil markets sulphur content or the amount
of high-sulphur fuel oil
produced. Options considered
 are:
  • Crude substitution
 n • Blendstock hydrotreatment
 n
• Residue desulphurisation
 n
 n • Residue hydrocracking
 n • Crude desulphurisation
3ULPHURCONTENT

 • Fuel oil destruction.




Crude substitution
 For most refineries, the sulphur
 content of the fuel oil they
 produce is largely controlled by

B A PIS OS ISK HT TL ITO VA NT IA AN PE TE ALS AJA HT VY ND M HT TA YA AIT VY
F G N E N N R G A U G A A A
the crude oil processed in the
$O 4A RCAD %KO Y,I AS) +U A.O "R SCO URB 3LO RIE 5 INSK N,I (E S"LE :AK N, :U - +UW (E
&O N N 4EX
4E RR 6A - . /
A A C H NIA IAN AR ER BIA IAN refinery. Figure 3 shows the
"O 7 AS
K Z RA N - PP !RA AB
!L "U ) )RA 5 !R impact of crude selection by
considering a range of 24
Figure 3 Typical fuel oil sulphur content for various crude oils crudes and looking at the
sulphur content of a blend of
and that over the coming years growth in bunker vacuum residue and 15% straight-run kerosene.
fuels is expected to make up for declining inland From this chart, it can be seen that the reduc-
fuel oil sales to keep global demand fairly tion from 4.5–3.5 wt% will have little impact on
constant. refiners, as most crudes will be able to produce
The changes in bunkers’ specifications have fuel oil below 3.5 wt%, and where crudes do
the potential to seriously impact the world fuel show levels above 3.5 wt% they will either be
oil markets and may also impact the markets for blended with lower sulphur crudes or processed
other transport fuels as the changes to the fuel in full upgrading refineries. This is further
oil markets impact them. confirmed when you consider that the IMO’s
The biggest impact outside of the fuel oil figures for 2004–2006 show an average sulphur
market is likely to be on the distillate and diesel content for bunkers of around 2.7 wt%.
markets. At 0.1 or 0.5 wt% sulphur in fuel oil it The change to a 0.5 wt% sulphur specification
seems possible that there will be a switch to will be harder to achieve, with very few crudes
distillate use, as it will become increasingly diffi- being able to produce a fuel oil meeting this
cult and/or expensive to achieve the required specification without some sort of residue

2 Catalysis 2009 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090

upgrading/desulphurisation.
For SECA bunker fuels, the ,0'
,0'-EROX
requirements are even tougher: ,0'

the current 1.5 wt% can be met

.APHTHA
by low-sulphur crudes and the

,0'
,T (
1 wt% limit should be achieva- ( 3&' NAPH
)3/-
ble from some refineries, but a .APHTHA ( &' #S
.AP
0.1 wt% specification will be .APHTHA 'ASOLINE

#$5
3PLITTER
($4 2EFORMATE
extremely difficult to achieve. #RUDE ##2
2EF 3PLITTER
None of the crudes considered ( 3&'
(VY
NAPH
can meet this specification from +ERO +EROSENE
*ET
blending vacuum residue (VR) ($4
(

,0'
3&'
and kerosene, and for many
$IESEL
crudes 0.1 wt% would not be $IESEL($4 $IESEL
obtainable even with residue ( 3&'

desulphurisation. Realistically, ( 3&'

to achieve 0.1 wt% sulphur 6'/ ,#/ &## 4REATEDGASOIL

would require a move from !TM
2ES
&##
.APHTHA
GASOLINE
($4
using fuel oils to using
,#/$#/
distillate.
6$5

!TMVACRESTOFUELOIL
7. 3&'
'ASOIL
Desulphurisation options 62ES
6ISBREAKER 2ESDUE (3&/
The obvious solution to reduc- +EROSENETOFUELOIL
ing sulphur in bunkers is to $IESELTOFUELOIL
look at desulphurisation 3&' !MINETREATMENT
(3
325 3ULPHUR
options, including:
&'
• Blendstock desulphurisation &UELGASSYSTEM ,0' (YDROGENPLANT (

Removing sulphur from the

easiest to treat blend compo- Figure 4 Base case refinery configuration
nents of the fuel oil
• Pre-upgrading sulphur removal For example, blendstock desulphurisation is only really practi-
installing VGO hydrotreating to reduce the cal where a refinery fuel oil product is marginally
sulphur content of FCC, LCO and DCO higher than the fuel oil specification.
• Residue upgrading Direct hydrotreatment of
the hardest to treat residue streams VGO hydrotreatment
• Whole crude hydrotreatment To convert high- Pretreatment of feeds to upgrading units, such
sulphur crudes to low-sulphur crudes. as VGO hydrotreatment before an FCC, offers
more scope for reducing the sulphur content of
Blendstock desulphurisation the fuel oil. FCC products are often relatively
Blendstock treatment is the easiest to achieve, as high in sulphur and make up a significant part of
the sulphur species are the easiest to remove and the fuel oil pool. By removing the sulphur from
there are fewer other contaminants. However, these fractions, the overall pool content can be
the blendstocks are lower in sulphur anyway, so significantly reduced. While VGO is more diffi-
treating these streams has less impact on the cult to treat than diesel or kerosene, it is still
overall sulphur content of the pool. To illustrate much easier to treat than a full residue stream.
this, we can consider the impact on some of the
typical fuel oil blends mentioned earlier. For Residue upgrading
example, if we look at a blend of 85% VR and The next option to be considered is full residue
15% kerosene for Urals crude, the fuel oil has a hydrotreating, either in a fixed-bed, ebullating-
sulphur content of 2.55 wt%. If the kerosene is bed or slurry-bed reactor. Residue
desulphurised to 10 ppm, this drops to just 2.52 hydrotreatment is the most difficult of the proc-
wt% — a reduction of just over 1%. This means esses considered for sulphur removal, as the

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090 Catalysis 2009 3


Base case results for Ekofisk and Urals
Crude Ekofisk Urals higher hydrogen demands than distillate treating
Product slate BPSD BPSD
LPG 17 824 17 036
Propylene 4587 4977
Gasoline 86 373 77 703
Jet 8175 sulphur content of fuel oil, the options for
Diesel 64 613 64 478
Fuel oil 20 413 38 459
Coke
Sulphur TPD 88 185
CO2 emissions TPD 3822 4255
Sulphur wt% of fuel oil 0.78 2.96
Hydrogen plant TPD 0 0
Table 1
higher levels of impurities present additional
challenges in terms of removing those impurities
and maintaining run lengths for the units.
Whole crude hydrotreatment
The final option to consider is whole crude
hydrotreating. This is an area that is being inves-
tigated by a number of companies and offers the
potential to be able to process high-sulphur
crudes as if they were low sulphur. However, it
is not yet commercially proven and so is not
considered further within the scope of this
article.
For all of the options considered so far, addi-
tional hydrogen will be required for the higher
level of catalytic reactions (such as desulphurisa-
tion, demetallisation), and for many refiners this
will present its own challenges, as their hydrogen
balance is already constrained. This problem
Results with VGO HDT added to configuration
(FCC feed pretreatment)
Crude Ekofisk Urals Arab Heavy
Product slate BPSD BPSD BPSD
LPG N/A 14 085 14 105
Propylene N/A 4848 4028
Gasoline N/A 77 757 69 238
Jet N/A 0 0
Diesel N/A 64 165 21 323
Fuel oil 1.5 wt% N/A 773 0
Fuel oil 3.5 wt% N/A 37 781 90 036
Sulphur TPD N/A 262 342
CO2 emissions N/A 5132 4791
Sulphur wt% of fuel oil N/A 2.52% 3.5 wt%/4 wt%
Hydrogen plant TPD N/A 93 64
Table 2
4 Catalysis 2009
becomes even more significant because residue
upgrading or treating processes have much
processes (even non-catalytic processes such as
coking require hydrogen to treat the coker prod-
ucts). As refiners begin to look at reducing the
producing and optimising hydrogen systems will
be equally as important as the changes in config-
uration to upgrade the fuel oil.
Fuel oil destruction options
It is important to note, although not examined
in this article, that should proposed changes to
the bunkers’ fuel specification happen, some
refiners may find it preferable to stop producing
fuel oil altogether. This means looking at options
that destroy fuel oil, either upgrading to other
liquid products or using it to produce power,
steam or hydrogen.
Case study
As a base case, consider an FCC-based refinery
and the products and configuration of that refin-
ery when processing three different crudes:
Ekofisk, Urals and Arab Heavy. Consider how
the configuration (Figure 4) and product slate
changes as the fuel oil sulphur content is
reduced, given configuration changes that
include a range of desulphurisation options.
The potential price changes in bunkers to make
these schemes attractive will be considered, and
the impact the changes could have on the carbon
dioxide emissions from the refinery will also be
reviewed. Table 1 shows the key results from the
base case runs.
It can be seen from the results that the base
case refinery running light crude such as Ekofisk
has no problems meeting a 3.5 wt% sulphur
specification on export fuel oil. Urals crude also
easily achieves the 3.5 wt% limit. Arab Heavy, on
the other hand, cannot be blended to a 3.5 wt%
fuel oil with this refinery configuration and
requires further upgrading to meet the specifica-
tion. This is not really a surprise, as Arab Heavy
is generally not processed as a 100% feed in the
base case refinery configuration.
VGO hydrotreater (HDT)
The changes shown in Table 2 can be seen when
considering the addition of a VGO HDT to the
scheme for treating FCC feed. A VGO HDT was
www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090
added to the refinery configu-
ration and the fuel oil %
specification constrained to 1.5
wt%, as per the current SECA
requirements. Ekofisk does not %

require further upgrading to

meet this reduced specifica- %
tion, so the VGO HDT was not

"03$
required in this case. Adding a
VGO HDT to the Urals refin- %
ery allows it to meet the 1.5
wt% specification in part.
Despite all of the VGO from %

the crude unit being routed via

the hydrotreater, only a small %
amount of 1.5 wt% fuel oil can "ASE 6'/($4 2ESID(#+ !2$3
be produced. In order to meet ,0' 0ROPYLENE 'ASOLINE *ET
this specification, the 1.5 wt% $IESEL WT&/ WT&/ WT&/
fuel oil comprises around 62%
distillate components. The
addition of the hydrotreater to Figure 5 Variation of product slate with desulphurisation options when
the Arab Heavy refinery still processing Urals crude
does not allow the fuel oil pool
(or even part of it) to meet the 1.5 wt% specifica- residue desulphurisation unit (ARDS) being added
tion. Diesel components make up 46% of the fuel to the refinery to meet the 0.5 wt% specification
oil pool to achieve 3.5 wt%, with a further grade are shown in Table 4. Ekofisk was excluded from
at 4.0 wt% needed to balance the pool. the analysis, as from the previous example it has
This demonstrates that removing sulphur from been shown that residue upgrading is not required
the FCC feed has only a small impact on the fuel to blend 0.5 wt% fuel oil in this case. In order to
oil sulphur content and that, to make a step blend 0.1 wt% fuel oil when processing Ekofisk,
change in fuel oil sulphur content, the sulphur the LP model selects an ARDS unit. It can be seen
from the vacuum residue needs to be removed. that the ARDS unit greatly reduces the amount of

Residue hydrocracking + VGO HDT

It is clear from the previous
results that the addition of
further residue upgrading
would be required to meet a
fuel oil specification of 0.5
wt%. The results of a residue
hydrocracker added to the
refinery are shown in Table 3.
From these results, it can be
seen that it is possible to meet
the 0.5 wt% sulphur specifica-
tion in fuel oil, but only by
adding significant (and proba-
bly impractical) levels of
distillates to the blend.
Results with vacuum residue hydrocracking added to the configuration
Crude Ekofisk Urals Arab Heavy
Product slate BPSD BPSD BPSD
LPG 14 059 10 916 5515
Propylene 4804 5860 5559
Gasoline 91 645 90 293 84 430
Jet 10 583 10 308 14 364
Diesel 46 484 55 190 0
Fuel oil 0.5 wt% 34 251 10 778 75 392
56% HDT distillates 75% HDT distillates 86% distillates
Fuel oil 1.5 wt% _ – –
Fuel oil 3.5 wt% 18 801 13 849
48% distillates
Sulphur TPD 89 274 637
CO2 emissions 4088 5245 5999
Sulphur wt% of 1.48 wt% 1.98 wt% 1.5 wt%
refinery fuel oil 37% distillates 37% distillates
Hydrogen plant TPD 0 314 676

Residue desulphurisation
The results of an atmospheric Table 3

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090 Catalysis 2009 5

 auction, which this will only add to the cost of
Results with ARDS added to the configuration
reducing sulphur in fuel oil.
Crude Urals Arab Heavy
Product slate – – Summary and conclusions
LPG 7813 2153
Propylene 4977 The cases examined in this article demonstrate
4074
Gasoline 81 380 that the proposed reductions in sulphur specifi-
72 801
Jet 1296 cation are achievable. However, for most refiners
0
Diesel 70 466 60 324
to achieve the target specifications by processing
Fuel oil 0.5 wt% 30 886 57 445
Fuel oil 1.5 wt% 0 anything but the lowest sulphur and most expen-
0
Fuel oil 3.5 wt% 3550 sive crudes will require significant investment in
0
Sulphur TPD 421 desulphurisation technologies, or will require
696
CO2 emissions 5146 6102
significant levels of distillate to be blended into
Hydrogen plant TPD 328 739
the fuel oil pool.
If the specification changes take place, they
Table 4 will have a number of impacts on refineries and
on the fuel oil markets. One result of the changes
distillate blendstock required to make the low- in specification could be to see a move away
sulphur fuel oil. Figure 5 shows how the product from fuel oil to distillates, especially where SECA
slate from a refinery processing Urals crude varies regulations are in force. This will present its own
with the different desulphurisation options. problems, as it will further increase the pressure
on distillate production from European refineries
Impact on carbon emissions already under pressure to deal with a shortfall in
Figure 6 summarises CO2 emissions from the diesel production, and increasing European
various refinery configurations. From this, it can diesel demand from the dieselisation of the
be seen that the options available to reduce European car fleet.
sulphur in fuel oil will result in higher CO2 emis- The changes to the fuel oil pool will require
sions from the refinery. This will present significant investment by many refiners if they
European refiners with further challenges as wish to stay in the bunkers market. The proc-
emissions trading schemes come into force and esses considered are relatively capital intensive
the level of allowable emissions reduces. The and a typical European refinery of 200 000
proposed timing of the changes in fuel oil speci- BPSD (with VGO upgrading but no VR conver-
fications coincide with the proposed timings for sion) could have to spend in excess of $1 billion
European refiners moving from receiving free in order to upgrade all of the fuel oil the refinery
emissions credits to having to buy credits by produces. To justify this level of investment and
to achieve an acceptable return
on investment, a significant
 increase in the price of bunkers
will be required, and the work
%KOFISK

5RALS undertaken by Foster Wheeler

!RAB(EAVY suggests the price of fuel oil
would need to be very close to
that of diesel to justify the
#/TONNESDAY


investments required.

If it is assumed that all
 bunkers will require desul-
phurisation, this would require

around 200 million tonnes per
 annum of desulphurised or
upgraded residue. This equates

"ASE 6'/($4 2ESID(#+ !2$3 to around 50–100 major
upgrading projects around the
Figure 6 Impact of desulphurisation options on carbon emissions globe in the next 12 years.

6 Catalysis 2009 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090

 The IMO’s plans for fuel oil are only a proposal
at the moment and the full implications of the
suggested changes are still to be understood.
However, it does appear that they will present
refiners with some real challenges if they are
implemented as proposed. The impacts on each
refinery will depend not only on where the speci-
fications are set, but also on the individual
opportunities open to that refinery. To be ready
to deal with potential reductions in fuel oil
sulphur, refiners need to start investigating their
options well ahead of any changes.
This article is based on a presentation from the November 2008
ERTC Annual Meeting in Vienna, Austria.
www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000090
Mike Stockle is Chief Engineer, Refinery Technology, with Foster
Wheeler Energy Limited in the UK.
Email: michael_stockle@fwuk.fwc.com
Tina Knight is Process Engineer, Downstream Business Solutions,
with Foster Wheeler Energy Limited in the UK.
Email: tina_knight@fwuk.fwc.com
LinkS
More articles from: Foster Wheeler USA
More articles from the following categories:
Desulphurisation & Sulphur Handling
Emissions Control
Catalysis 2009 7