Economical processing of residual fractions is critical for the refiners, as they are good feed-stocks for the production of middle distillates and coke. Refiners have developed innovative business strategies to achieve major reduction in heavy fuel oil production. A number of processes based on the thermal treatment are available for the reduction of fuel oil production through carbon rejection. A reduction in light crude availability and an increase in the price differential between light and heavy crude makes processing of heavier crudes highly attractive. It is also found that the coke quality is directly influenced by the nature of the feed-stock. As residual feed-stocks become heavier, contaminants (such as sulphur and metals) do increase, which affects the quality of coke and making the coke less marketable. In India, low sulphur, low metals, heavy stocks from indigenous crude, like Assam crude mix, are good feed-stocks for metallurgical grade coke production. Because of low value and difficult to disposal of heavy crude/residues it is desirable to upgrade it into valuable products like middle distillates with petroleum coke as a by-product which is useful for aluminium industry. This paper presents experimental results obtaiend with Assam crude mix short residue as feed-stocks processed at IIP's bench scale delayed coking unit.
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