Investigation on feasibility to predict the content of saturate plus mono-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in vacuum gas oils from bulk properties and empirical correlations

This work presents a study on feasibility to predict saturates plus mono-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons content in vacuum gas oils from readily available physical properties and the empirical methods: n-d-M, API, Total, Conoco Phillips (COP), and that of Goosens. As a result of a wide literature search 44 vacuum gas oils (VGO) having saturate plus mono-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in the range 13.7–97.0% and specific gravity (SG) in the range 0.8648–1.0903 were selected. Based on the physical properties SG and T50 boiling point of the 44 VGOs and the aromatic carbon and hydrogen content predicted by the Conoco-Phillips method a new correlation that predicts VGO saturate plus mono-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons content with a reasonable accuracy was developed. This correlation based on a wide variation in properties of VGO can be used for a daily optimization of operation of FCC and hydrocracking units.