Determined to leverage the domestic production of diesel fuel, Petrobras is investing in technology to transform its future refineries into units that are fully prepared not only to inject more diesel into the market, but also to produce a better quality fuel. Of the four new Petrobras projects on the drawing boards, the Northeast Refinery and the Premium Refineries have something in common — the search for solutions to produce increasingly less gasoline and more diesel fuel. For its part, the Comperj petrochemical complex will innovate by using an FCC unit that not only produces gasoline, but also by-products such as ethane and propane directly from heavy oil.

Petrobras is investing heavily in refining, based upon the forecast for a growth in consumption of domestic oil products of 3% per year through 2013. However, data released by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) demonstrates that the prospects could be even better for diesel, whose consumption increased 7.7% between 2007 and 2008. With a 41% increase in ethanol consumption over the 2007-2008 period and the growing fleet of flex fuel vehicles, the only oil product that threatens fuel supplies in the country is diesel, which is imported today and used massively for highway cargo transportation.

“Diesel is the oil product that is growing the fastest. It is not for nothing that the Premium refineries, planned to operate in 2013, are being optimized to produce diesel,” stated Petrobras’ director of Supplies, Paulo Roberto Costa.

Among the major investments foreseen by the company, refining is where 73% of the total earmarked for the Supplies area will be concentrated. By increasing production projections for diesel in its 2009-2013 Strategic Plan, Petrobras is trying to reduce the impact of the product on Brazil’s trade balance, under the fuel import line item. In this context, technology is a fundamental tool.

“The entire world is seeking a way to produce more and better quality diesel fuel. Anyone who is able to patent this first will have a competitive advantage,” said Eduardo Guerra, general manager of Basic Engineering and Refining at Cenpes, the Petrobras Technology Center.

RNEST

One of Petrobras’ main investments is the so-called Northeast Refinery (the Abreu e Lima Refinery or RNEST). Scheduled to come on stream in 2011, the unit in a first stage would produce 200,000 bpd. However, improvements to the projects would increase the load by another 30,000 bpd, boosting capacity up to 230,000 bpd.

At RNEST, the star of the show is the Retarded Coking Unit (RAT). Normally, the refineries that produce gasoline make use of atmospheric distillation units, accompanied by vacuum distillation units and an FCC (Catalytic Cracking Unit). Because RNEST’s focus is diesel, the scheme does not require the FCCs, which make gasoline a priority. Atmospheric distillation inserts a direct load into a coke unit that has been designed by the Cenpes. The coke unit will process the atmospheric residues directly, without treatment.

“The reverse of the vacuum load process, the coke unit directly processes the atmospheric distillation load. After the coke, the load goes directly f