FCC units increase refineries’ gasoline production by up to 50%

According to Energy Press, the low Nelson number in Iran’s refineries leads to the final production of low-quality products such as heating oil and fuel oil. Fuel oil or fuel oil is one of the oil hydrocarbons that is obtained in the oil refining process after naphtha, gasoline and kerosene, and because it is black in color, it is also called black oil. This substance is the cheapest fuel for furnaces, bathrooms and ovens of bakeries, marine diesel engines and some power plants. In fact, this product is produced instead of oil and gasoline; Products that do not have much added value for the country’s oil industry.
That too, in a situation where the budget of 4 billion dollars for the import of gasoline was published as worrying news from the beginning of the year. According to the budget table, 4.1 billion dollars will be spent on importing oil products this year. On the other hand, news based on the import of high diesel fuel has made the need for alternative ways for profitable production more serious than in the past.
It has been said for some time that one of these ways is the construction of FCC units, which will both reduce the production of fuel oil and increase the production of at least 16 million liters of gasoline per day. But how scientific is this statement? To answer that, first we need to know a little about these units. FCC units are a complex process that is built in oil refineries and their job is to convert heavy compounds with high boiling point into valuable products such as gasoline and alkene gases and other hydrocarbon compounds.
In fact, this method, which is called catalytic cracking, has replaced the old methods such as thermal cracking technique to produce a higher percentage of valuable products such as high octane gasoline in the refinery.