converting petroleum coke (petcoke) to liquid fuels, energy products and various downstream products. Different petcoke conversion strategies investigated which can be competitive with current market prices with no adverse environmental impacts. The study investigated included scenarios with respect to the global situation and the current industrial challenges on energy efficiency and creating opportunities for downstream products.

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Pet-Coke Gasification & Downstream Opportunity
ABSTRACT
This work explores the investment
opportunity of converting petroleum coke
(petcoke) to liquid fuels, energy products
and various downstream products.
Different petcoke conversion strategies
investigated which can be competitive with
current market prices with no adverse
environmental impacts. The study
investigated included scenarios with
respect to the global situation and the
current industrial challenges on energy
efficiency and creating opportunities for
downstream products.

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Table of Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................2
Consumption of Petroleum Coke ............................................................................................................................3
Pet - coke Gasification Technologies:.....................................................................................................................4
Market Overview.....................................................................................................................................................5
Price of the Petroleum Coke...................................................................................................................................6
Opportunities in KSA...............................................................................................................................................6
Incentives overview................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Conclusion: ............................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
References..............................................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Petcoke Gasification is a flexible, commercially
proven, efficient technology & a building block for
production of a broad range of high-value
products including clean power, synthetic fuels,
and chemicals from lower value feedstocks.
Installing gasification and syngas cleaning units
can reduce overall emissions of SOx, NOx, CO2,
particulates, metals and chlorine and in addition
to that it can produce useful products to
maximize profitability. With continuing
developments in the technology, gasification is
becoming an important part of the portfolio of
available processes to convert carbonaceous
materials.
• Gasifiers can be designed to run on a single
material or a blend of feedstocks including:
i. Solids – petroleum coke, coal, biomass,
waste paper, plastics, industrial and
municipal waste.
ii. Liquids – liquid refinery residues
iii. Gas (by reforming) – natural gas or
refinery/ chemical off-gas
•Products include methanol, ammonia/urea,
hydrogen, carbon monoxide, chemicals and
fertilizers, substitute natural gas, transportation
fuels and power.
• Clean and environmentally-compatible use of
high sulfur and heavy metal content fuels.
• Large-size plants for competitive electric power
and hydrogen production.
• Marginal cost to capture CO2 is low.
• Flexible design to meet different capacity
requirements.
Pet-coke Gasification is emerging as a key
technology allowing the use of unconventional
materials for an ever-widening range of
chemicals. The development of processes, such
as methanol-to-olefins, and potential new
markets for downstream products, such as
dimethyl ether, significantly broadens the
attractiveness of syngas-based technology. As
traditional hydrocarbon feedstocks have become
more price volatile, petcoke has gained an
economic advantage in that range and created
leverage over fee-stock availability. Chemicals
and fertilizer production is an attractive market for
gasification in regions with large petcoke/coal
reserves and/or access to major petcoke
markets.
Hydrogen availability in refineries has been
installed in many residue upgrading units to meet
clean fuels requirements and to produce more
valuable products. Pet-coke Gasification can
provide the answer on this context too. Syngas
produced from gasification consists mainly of a
mixture of hydrogen, CO, CO2 and water with
pollutants that need to be removed to make more
value added products. Hydrogen in the syngas
and that produced by means of CO shift, can be
separated from sour compounds and CO2 and
purified in a PSA unit.

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Consumption of Petroleum
Coke
As the supply of heavy oils has increased in the
world market, and typically processing these oils
has generated less light products and more
heavy residues. So, there will be a tendency for
refineries to use residue from gasification
processes in refineries of origin, producing gas
streams, which may serve as raw materials for
other processes. Some of the power plant can
produce 50 MW - 500 MW using the byproduct of
the petroleum coke gasification and would follow
a process having zero SO2 and CO2 emissions
with an expected application for petroleum
gasification. The coke is burned in a fluidized
bed, using CaO for absorbing SO2 and CO2. A
calciner, burning coke, may be used to
regenerate the CaO and obtain CO2 for other
industrial processes.
Because of higher BTU content, petcoke runs
well in slurry fed gasifiers, contributing to lower
capital cost and greater yield of syngas.
Gasification of petcoke results in low quantities
of slag product because the lower ash content of
petcoke compared to coal. The high Sulphur and
metals content of petcoke relative to coal are not
technical or environmental concern for
gasification and don’t add significantly to the
plant capital cost. The worldwide increase in
petcoke production is forcing the market to take
notice of it as an alternative and cost effective
feedstock for gasification.
World petroleum coke production has been on
the rise fueled by global increase in heavy crude
oil usage, elimination of fuel oil to meet the
growing energy demands. The growth is
anticipated to continue at an average rate of 7 -
8% per year with the dominant producer and
exporter of fuel grade petcoke. The underlying
reasons for sustained increase in petcoke
production are healthy number of delayed coking
projects that are currently in high phase around
the world for deeper conversion of their fuel oil
product streams.
Petcoke gasification and downstream usage
presents a unique opportunity for refiners that
have dedicated supply of petcoke and depends
on the high priced LNG to satisfy their hydrogen
and energy requirements. The delayed coking
process remains a key bottom of the barrel
conversion process of its ability to convert low
valued residual fuel oil to higher valued liquid
products. Fuel grade petcoke is considered an
undesired by-product of the delayed coking
process. Specialty coke production (e.g. anode
coke & needle coke) is based on a different set
of product objectives and economics. Petcoke is
generally a low cost product that must be
removed from the refinery, requiring investment
in short term storage, shipping facilities and long-
term marketing. Gasifying the petcoke will not
only eliminate reliance on the outside market for
disposition of coke, but adds significant value by
converting it to high value products while un-

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coupling refinery economics from the LNG
market. Refinery hydrogen consumption has
been increasing as a result of the increase in the
crude oil sulfur content and increased regulatory
requirements for lower sulfur in finished product
streams. Moreover, introducing hydrocrackers in
to a refinery processing scheme to satisfy the
growing market demand of diesel has further
increased the demand of hydrogen.
Hydrocracking units consume approximately
50% of hydrogen produced by steam methane
reformer in a high conversion in refinery.
The simplicity of gasification chemistry is
overridden by the mechanical complexity as well
as the material requirements. A steady and
uninterrupted feeding of the feedstock must be
maintained to ensure a continuous operation.
Further, a proper mixing of the feedstock with
gasification medium in the gasifier must be
achieved to obtain high conversions. Some
refractory linings are needed to prevent
corrosions by slags in the advanced gasifiers.
Super alloys have to be used for some heat
recovery systems to prevent corrosions by
Sulphur, chlorine and alkalis and erosion by
particulates.
Pet - coke Gasification
Technologies:
Several types of the commercial entrained bed
gasifiers are available for selection of one which
fulfils best the performance, economic and
environmental requirements. With respect to the
gasification of refinery residues, the entrained
bed gasifiers are the gasifiers of the choice. For
the purpose of optimized one, these gasifiers
could be studied as per the project requirements.
The best known slurry feeding entrained bed
gasifiers are available in current market, whereas
the best known dry feeding systems are also part
of these gasifiers. High temperatures attained in
these gasifiers make them suitable for the
gasification of less reactive feedstocks such as
the petroleum coke and oil sand coke. In the case
of the slurry fed gasifiers, refinery wastes such as
K-, D- and F-wastes can be gasified with the
coke. A wide range of liquid and semisolid
materials can also be gasified.
Prior to the utilization, gasification products have
to be cleaned to remove particulates and
Sulphur. For this purpose, conventional cleaning
systems are being used commercially. In this
case, the gas is cooled and then scrubbed to
remove particulates. A low temperature steam
can be recovered during the low temperature
cooling of the particulate free gas. Also, this gas
can be used to preheat water for fuel gas
saturation prior to combustion in the turbine or to
pre-heat boiler feed water. In refinery, this gas
can be used to preheat other streams. The
particulate free gas enters the COS hydrolyzer
where most of the COS is converted to H2S in the
presence of a catalyst. This fuel gas then enters
the acid gas removal section where more than
95% of Sulphur is removed.
For this purpose, various commercial processes
operated at about 100°C – 150°C are available
in the market. The selection of the process
depends on the system parameters and
concentration of acid gases. After desorption
from the scrubbing agent, the acid gases enter

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Claus process for recovery of elemental Sulphur.
An additional treatment of the tail gas from the
Claus process is needed to meet environmental
regulations. It is noted that most of the
components of the gas cleaning systems are in
the operation in refineries for purifying refinery
gas prior to their use either as petrochemical
feedstocks or combustion fuel.
Market Overview
Petroleum coke is a by-product of the oil refining
industry. It has a high calorific value and a low
selling price. Due to higher amounts of
processed heavy oils, petroleum coke production
has been increasing significantly since past few
years. Its low price and abundance has made it
an attractive residue for the industrial sector,
especially for the electric power and cement
production sectors. As oils become heavier, their
densities in API degrees’ decrease and their
contaminant content, especially sulfur
compounds, may increase. This tendency
becomes evident as part of a survey before by
some of the global market research firms on
about 15.5 million barrels of oil processed per
day in the U.S., of which two‐thirds are currently
imported from various parts of the world (EIA,
2012). Due to the demand for petroleum with
lighter production fractions such as naphtha,
gasoline, kerosene and diesel, oil refineries have
begun processing heavier oils to meet the market
demand for light and medium products. Thus,
along with the fluid catalytic cracking, which
converts diesel into gases and gasoline, delayed
coking has been increasing and gaining more
and more importance in refineries. Since
petroleum coke is a product derived from the
bottom of the barrel oil processing system, this
derivative has more or less sulfur content based
on the type of oil from which it originated. The
high sulfur is a great problem because the sulfur
emission control becomes the challenging.
The world production of petroleum coke reached
81 Mt (million tons) in 2001, 83 Mt in 2002 and
was surpassed over 200 Mt in 2017 and
expected with a growth of 5-7% every year. The
United States of America is the largest producer
of petroleum coke with around 67.5% of the total
world production. Whereas, Saudi Arabia is a net
in-house producer with nearly 11 KTPA export
market demand, which accounted to nearly -
19% of global market share. Japan and Turkey
are major importer due to technology advantage
and usage of energy from by-product
management and use in the cement
manufacturing.
The total market value of petroleum coke was
around 100 million tons in past decade of 2011
(Roskill, 2012). The United States accounted for
40% of the supply during that time and China
produced 64 million tons. The market is bound by the

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demands of five major industries: petroleum refining,
electric power generation, cement, steel and
aluminum. The aluminum and steel industries
require coke with higher purity, low sulfur and low
levels of metals, especially in the aluminum industry
for the production of high quality electrodes.
Apart from the diversified use some of the factors like
transportation of material and leverage over supply
benefit for feed-stock location are critical deciding
factors for usage.
Crude oil when refined is processed into petrol,
diesel, naphtha, fuel oil, kerosene and residue
crude. Further a process known as coking is
carried out to produce petcoke. Currently, more
than 100 refineries produce petcoke across the
globe. Fuel grade coke and calcined coke are the
two major types of petroleum coke available in
the market. Major applications of fuel grade coke
are found in power plants and cement kilns owing
to high calorific value and less cost. Calcined
coke is used to manufacture titanium oxide and
find applications in various industries such as
aluminum, bricks, fertilizer, glass and steel.
Increasing investments, high electricity demand
and growing population are some of the key
drivers of the petroleum coke market in the Asia
pacific region. In China, majority of the petroleum
coke is used in power plants to generate
electricity whereas in India petcoke is used as
fuel in cement industry. Petcoke is an
internationally traded raw material and is
boosting the growth of emerging economies.
Price of the Petroleum
Coke
Several factors influence the petroleum coke
market price. When the international price of coal
increases, the demand for petroleum coke also
increases. According to some of the global
analysts, the rise of the international coal price is
generally what most influences the high price of
the petroleum coke, usually with a delay effect of
about 2 - 3 months.
High demand for petroleum coke has been
witnessed in Asia Pacific region over the past few
years owing to developing economies such as
China and India. Majorly, it comprises of carbon
along with traces of sulfur and heavy metals
which are also sometimes the deciding
component of the landed price.
Opportunities in KSA
Various opportunities could be considered having
the flexibility over easy feed-stock availability and
gaining margin over solid material supply cost. The
price margin gains over waste management supply
and this would be able to produce multiple
downstream products varying from, methanol,

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methyl acetate, acetic acid, VAM and other olefin
derivatives etc.
A significant increase in export of petcoke
quantity will give an opportunity for further energy
supply and downstream production
development. Particularly, in KSA context the
petcoke availability is on an average around 60 -
70% of total Saudi Arabia volume.
Most of the Saudi Oil Refiners have been taken
stance to use the petcoke inside their complex,
however this use has not become significant in full
cycle because of various technical bottle-neck and
lack of room for revamp and for that reason they
prefer to export outside Saudi Arabia.
Considering, the crude assay there is high chance
of production of short residue and pet-coke in near
future and gain in opportunity for pet-coke usage
/gasification in the forth-coming period.
A production of over some thousand MTPA of
petcoke from the indigenous Saudi Refinery and
capability of upgradation, utilizing the carbon
credit and future energy requirement, there could
be an opportunity for petcoke gasification. The
petcoke gasification would be able to cater
multiple downstream portfolio and would be able
to help in developing further various downstream
clusters. Comparison between energy price
volatility, downstream production and window for
diversification in adherence to the supply chain
management, economies of scale, and parallel
feed-stock availability over Natural Gas vis-à-vis
Petcoke, the Gasification and diversified
downstream product portfolio shall be an
opportunity in building the capital project in KSA
Industrial city.
References
1. BP, BP Statistical Review of World Energy. 2017, British
Petroleum: London, UK.
2. NRCAN, Natural Resources Canada: Oil Resources. 2014.
3. Klara, J., et al., Cost and performance baseline for fossil
energy plants. National Energy
4. Technology Laboratory, DOE/NETL-2007/1281, 2007
5. CEPCI, Economic Indicators, C. Engineering, Editor.
6. Techno-economic comparison of Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol
fermentation using various extractants. Energy Conversion
and Management, 2018.
7. Child, E.T., Muenger, J.R. and Schlinger, W.G. Gasification
of Oils, Pitch, Coke and Coal Using the Texaco Gasification
Process
8. Saudi Aramco Annual Report 2017-18 Facts and figures

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Disclaimer: This study is intended to build an ideation among investors and interested parties. The information contained here may not be relied or accounted
on by anyone for any purposes both commercial and business and research purpose. Finally, neither the analysis makes any representation that the use of
any product, apparatus, process, method, or other information here will not infringe privately owned property rights and assumes no liability of any kind or
nature for any loss, injury, or damage directly or indirectly resulting from, or occurring in connection with, the use of information contained, described,
disclosed, or referred to. All the prices, figures and conversion rate are as per the current situation and subject to change as per the market condition.