Lessons Learned from 10 Years H-Oil Exploitation

Dicho Stratiev

doi:10.62762/JCERF.2025.759076

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Volume 1, Issue 1, Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels

Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025

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Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025: 15-21

Open Access | Research Article | 30 September 2025

Lessons Learned from 10 Years H-Oil Exploitation

Dicho Stratiev 1,2 *

1 LUKOIL Nerftohim Burgas, Burgas 8010, Bulgaria

2 Section Bioinformatics and Mathematical Modelling, Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering-Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1113, Bulgaria

* Corresponding Author: Dicho Stratiev, [email protected]

DOI: 10.62762/JCERF.2025.759076

Received: 28 July 2025, Accepted: 11 August 2025, Published: 30 September 2025

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Abstract

The ebulled bed hydrocracking technology of petroleum residues, called H-Oil, was invented in the 1950s. The first patent was issued in 1961. A demonstration unit was started up in 1963, and the first large-scale commercial unit was started up in 1968. There are currently 21 vacuum residue hydrocracking units operating worldwide using the ebulled bed reactor technology. Since 2015, the ebulated bed vacuum residue (VR) hydrocracking has been operated at the LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas (LNB) refinery. Performance of LNB ebullated bed vacuum residue H-Oil hydrocracker for a period of 10 years during processing 39 different vacuum residues at reactor temperatures between 408 and 434°C, and liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) between 0.12 and 0.22 h-1 is discussed in this study. The feasible co-processing of renewable feedstocks in the H-Oil hydrocracker is also outlined.

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Lessons Learned from 10 Years H-Oil Exploitation

Keywords

hydrocracking

vacuum residue

conversion

sedimentation

co-processing

Data Availability Statement

Data will be made available on request.

Funding

This work was supported without any funding.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate

Not applicable.

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APA Style

Stratiev, D. (2025). Lessons Learned from 10 Years H-Oil Exploitation. Journal of Chemical Engineering and Renewable Fuels, 1(1), 15–21. https://doi.org/10.62762/JCERF.2025.759076

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