Published November 2019
This report examines the market demand, important properties, technology, and economics of manufacture of representative grades of petroleum-Based lubricant Base Oils of Group I, II, and III. Group I is the traditional Base Oil which until recently had the largest market. Group II and III Base Oils are relatively recent entrants to the market, and already Group II Base Oil has overtaken Group I as the largest manufactured grade of petroleum-Based lubricant Base Oils. All the recent capacity additions are present in Group II and III Base Oils.
Group II and III Base Oils use the Hydroprocessing route which enables difficult feeds to be processed into Base Oils and allows production of Base Oils with very high viscosity index (VI).
This report conducts a technical and economic evaluation of the routes using typical 10,000 BPSD feed of vacuum gas oil to manufacture Base Oils:
Group I—Solvent Extraction using N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), solvent dewaxing using MethylEthyl ketone along with toluene, and hydrofinishing.Group II—Hydrocracking, catalytic hydrocracking dewaxing, and hydrofinishing.
Group III—Hydrocracking, hydroisomerization dewaxing, and hydrofinishing.
The report presents mass balance, major equipment brief specification, utility consumption, flow schemes, Class III capital cost estimates, capacity exponents, and production cost estimates for all three Base Oil production processes. Additionally, sufficient details for each processing section are also included, which will allow the reader to use a combination of processes from each group to tailor a process suitable for his needs. For instance, solvent extraction followed by catalytic hydrodewaxing and hydrofinishing process can also be evaluated using this report.
This report does not cover other chemical routes like polyalpha olefins, to produce synthetic Base Oils. It also does not cover formulations and blending processes to manufacture the final end product— lubricating oil. This report will be highly beneficial for planners and producers looking to manufacture Base Oils.
An interactive module is included—the iPEP Navigator for the processes—which provides a snapshot of the process economics and allows the user to select the units and global region of interest.
The technological and economic assessment of the process is PEP’s independent interpretation of the commercial process Based on information presented in open literature, such as patents or technical articles, and may not reflect in whole or in part the actual plant configuration. We do believe that they are sufficiently representative of the process and process economics within the range of accuracy necessary for economic evaluations of the conceptual process designs.
