The world's largest - and the nation's first - slurry bed residue hydrogenation unit, with a capacity of 2.6 million tons per year, was put into use at Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Company on Dec 31, 2020.

It marked the moment that the world's most advanced slurry bed residue hydrogenating technology has been successfully industrialized in China.

The unit uses the EST (Eni Slurry Technology) of Italian energy firm Eni, which can convert refinery residues, heavy oils and bitumen into high-quality light products, thus eliminating any waste. It has a designed conversion rate of light oil of up to 94 percent.

In addition, a light oil combined hydrogenation unit of 1.5 million tons a year, a sulfur recovery unit of 150,000 tons a year, and a sour water stripping device of 200 tons per hour were also installed.

They were put in place to better the treatment of waste water and exhaust gas during the slurry bed residue hydrogenation unit production process, and to reduce the discharge of sulfur dioxide and volatile organic chemicals, further improving the factory environment and achieving a more environmentally-friendly production process.

Construction of the slurry bed residue hydrogenation unit started in October 2018. Its application adds to the transformation and upgrading of Sinopec Maoming, and is of great significance to promoting the clean processing of heavy oil and the transformation of petrochemical enterprises in China.

The world's largest - and nation's first - slurry bed residue hydrogenation unit of 2.6 million tons per year is put into use at Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Company on Dec 31, 2020. [Photo/WeChat account: maofabu]