Residuum Oil Supercritical Extraction (ROSE™)

The ROSE™ refining process complements the proprietary technologies offered by KBR to help refiners realize optimal production and profit from each barrel of crude.

The ROSE process is the most efficient solvent-extracting option for recovering higher value products from resids. ROSE units yield deasphalted oils that are excellent feedstocks for fluid catalytic crackers and hydrocrackers. They also recover resins and asphaltenes with a variety of uses.

Whether used in the conversion of an existing solvent deasphalting unit or incorporated into a grassroots design, ROSE technology helps refiners by offering product flexibility to take advantage of shifting market trends.

ROSE technology is based on the use of a light, readily-available hydrocarbon solvent to extract deasphalted oil from a feedstock rich in asphaltenes. The solvent is separated from the deasphalted oil in the downstream deasphalted oil separator, then recovered and recycled.

Solvent selection is based on the desired deasphalted oil purity and yield for a given feedstock. The ROSE unit includes a deasphalted oil stripper and an asphaltene stripper for final recovery and recycling of dissolved solvent from the two effluent streams.

The economic benefits of the ROSE process are the result of recovering the extraction solvent as a supercritical fluid. The recovered solvent is recycled through heat exchangers to recapture the major portion of the energy necessary to achieve supercritical solvent recovery. This may significantly reduce operating costs.

Commercial ROSE units have demonstrated overall savings of up to 50 percent compared to conventional solvent-extraction processes that use evaporation, compression and condensation. The relative simplicity of the ROSE process facilitates smooth start-up and operation and minimizes operator requirements.