A process for hydrotreating petroleum fractions early in the refining process by employing catalyst prepared as components of distillation structures or as contained beds of catalyst in atmospheric distillation columns and or side draw columns. For example, a crude petroleum is hydrotreated by taking side streams from an atmospheric distillation column and the vacuum gas oil from a vacuum distillation column which are individually fed to separate desulfurizations, preferably in distillation column reactors containing a hydrodesulfurization catalyst. The overheads from each of the distillation column reactors is returned to the atmospheric column and the bottoms from each distillation column reactor is withdrawn as hydrotreated product. The process may also be used for upgrading the effluent from a fluid catalytic cracking unit, preferably operated as a catalytic distillation reactor.
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