Kellogg Brown + Root LLC

Murugesan Subramanian

Jon C Moretta

Tayseer Abdel-Halim

Aldrich Holt Northup, Jr

Robert A Robinson

Chris W Taylor

Cameron O Olson

Pankaj M Shah

Disclosed is a pelletizer vessel and a prilling head assembly for use in the pelletizer vessel for prilling a hard resid material. The pellitizer vessel has an has an upright pelletizing vessel with an upper prilling zone, a sphere-forming zone below the prilling zone, a cooling zone below the sphere-forming zone, a bath below the cooling zone, and a prilling head in the prilling zone rotatable along a vertical axis and having a plurality of discharge orifices for throwing molten material radially outwardly. A vertical height of the sphere-forming zone is sufficient to allow material discharged from the prilling head to form substantially spherical liquid pellets. Nozzles are provided for spraying water inwardly into the cooling zone to cool and at least partially solidify the liquid pellets to be collected in the bath. The prilling head assembly has a a feed inlet to allow for the introduction of resid material, rotary union with a fluid tight seal, a rotatable pipe to convey a resid material to the prilling head, a drive wheel to provide rotation to the rotatable pipe, a support housing having a mount for attachment to the pellitizer vessel, and a prilling head with a flow passage in fluid communication with the rotatable pipe and radially offset orifices. Bearings are provided for stablizing and guiding the rotatable pipe. Inert gas is introduced into the annular spaces of the support housing to prohibit foreign matter.

Prilling head assembly for pelletizer vessel

Disclosed are an integrated process and plant for slurrying and gasification or combustion of a petroleum resid such as asphaltenes from to make a synthesis gas or steam and/or power. The resid is prilled into a gaseous medium as a liquid with a rotating prilling head to form particles which form into a spherical shape. The liquid particles are directly quenched with a water spray to form a slurry of resid particles in water. The slurry comprises a solids loading of 50 to 80 percent and can also include a minor amount of a dispersant.

Pelletization of petroleum resids

A process and system which integrates on-site heavy oil or bitumen upgrading and energy recovery for steam production with steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) production of the heavy oil or bitumen. The heavy oil or bitumen produced by SAGD is flashed to remove the gas oil fraction, and the residue is solvent deasphalted to obtain deasphalted oil, which is mixed with the gas oil fraction to form a pumpable synthetic crude. The synthetic crude has an improvement of 4-5 degrees of API and lower in sulfur, nitrogen and metal compounds. The synthetic crude is not only more valuable than the heavy oil or bitumen, but also has substantial economic advantage of reducing the diluent requirement since it has lower viscosity than the heavy oil or bitumen. The asphaltenes, following an optional pelletizing and/or slurrying step, are used as a fuel for combustion in boilers near the steam injection wells for injection into the heavy oil or bitumen reservoir. This eliminates the need for natural gas or other fuel to produce steam at reservoir location and thus improves the economics of the heavy oil or bitumen production substantially. Alternatively, the asphaltenes are used as a feedstock for gasification to produce injection steam, synthesis gas. The CO could be used as additive with injection steam to enhance the performance of SAGD and the hydrogen could be exported to nearby processing facility. The invention upgrades the heavy oil or bitumen to a synthetic crude of improved value that can be pipelined with reduced amount of diluent, while at the same time using the asphaltene fraction of the residue for combustion to fulfill the energy requirements for generating injection steam for SAGD.

Field upgrading of heavy oil and bitumen

Disclosed are a method and apparatus for making substantially spherical, homogenous petroleum resid pellets having a size range between 0.1 and 10 mm, a penetration of essentially 0, a softening point temperature from about 200&deg; to about 400&deg; F., a residual water content of from 0.1 to 10 weight percent, and a sulfur content less than 10 weight percent. The process includes feeding the material in a molten state to a rotating prilling head to discharge the material into free space at an upper end of a pelletizing vessel having a diameter larger than a throw-away diameter of the discharged material, allowing the discharged material to break apart, form into substantially spherical liquid pellets, and fall downwardly into a liquid spray and/or bath to solidify the pellets. The apparatus has an upright pelletizing vessel with an upper prilling zone, a sphere-forming zone below the prilling zone, a cooling zone below the sphere-forming zone, a bath below the cooling zone, and a prilling head in the prilling zone rotatable along a vertical axis and having a plurality of discharge orifices for throwing molten material radially outwardly. A vertical height of the sphere-forming zone is sufficient to allow material discharged from the prilling head to form substantially spherical liquid pellets. Nozzles are provided for spraying water inwardly into the cooling zone to cool and at least partially solidify the liquid pellets to be collected in the bath. Also disclosed is pretreatment of a soft resid (softening point temperature below 200&deg; F.) by air oxidation to produce a hard resid suitable for feed to the prilling head.

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Murugesan Subramanian