Simulation and Techno-Economic analysis of Hydrotreating Process of Mazut

Research subject: Mazut is widely used in petrochemical, power, and marine industries. The use of these fuels, in addition to causing widespread air and sea pollution in the country, has also led to severe international penalties, rising costs, and corrosion of equipment. Therefore, the use of mazut fuel with sulfur compounds of up to 0.5% in the world, as a refining mazut fuel at the origin (in refineries) and taking into account all aspects, is more important. There are limited industrial methods for the hydrotreating of mazut (Due to the heavy oil cut and the complexity of sulfur compounds in it), the most common of which is hydrogen desulfurization (HDS). Research approach: The goal of this research, The simulation and economic evaluation of the hydrotreating plant from Mazut fuel with a capacity of 13.75 million barrels per year. The simulation of this process was performed in Aspen HYSYS petroleum refinery software. In this simulation, the effect of effective operating parameters such as pressure, hydrogen to mazut ratio, and finally catalyst consumption on the removal of sulfur compounds, production of by-products, net production costs, and total investment costs are investigated. Main Results The results showed that for the hydrotreating process of this mazut with sulfur compounds 3.5%, total capital investment is 308.9 million US$ and the net production cost of treated mazut fuel is estimated to be 114.5 million US$ per year. Also, economic sensitivity analysis showed that the operating parameter of the hydrogen to mazut ratio had the greatest effect on increasing the total capital investment and net production cost, which should be minimized as much as possible.