Global Major Refining Catalysts Development Status(1)

With the continuous improvement of global refining capacity, increasingly stringent oil standards, and the continuous increase in demand for chemical raw materials, the consumption of refining catalysts has been in a stable growth trend. Among them, the fastest increase is in emerging economies and developing countries. 

The demand for refining catalysts varies from country to country and region to region due to differences in economic development, refining capacity, and demand for oil and chemical raw materials; even for the same type of catalyst, the demand varies from region to region. For example, for FCC catalysts, catalysts for low carbon olefins ranked first in North America, while in Asia, catalysts for gasoline ranked first. the regions with the highest demand for FCC catalysts are North America and Asia Pacific, which accounted for more than 40% and 30% of the global demand for refining catalysts in 2017, respectively.

Global refining catalyst demand is expected to increase at an average annual rate of 3.6% from 2017 to 2020, with demand consumption reaching USD 4.7 billion in 2020 and more than USD 5.8 billion in 2025. This is due to the increase in global unconventional crude oil processing, including tight oil in the U.S., and increasingly stringent oil product and environmental standards.

The increase in tight oil processing is driving demand for FCC catalysts, which are also required to be more metal-tolerant and have the ability to produce more butenes (feedstock for alkylation units), mainly due to the 8 to 10 units of octane loss in gasoline caused by n-alkanes in tight oil.

Global oil standards continue to tighten and hydrogenation capacity for oil quality improvement continues to increase. Demand for hydrogenation catalysts is expected to continue to grow during this period. By 2025, metal catalysts such as cobalt, molybdenum, nickel and vanadium, which are mainly used in hydrogenation processes, will account for more than 35% of the global refining catalyst market.

In recent years, the consumption amount and increase in demand for all catalysts including refining, polymerization and chemical synthesis in Asia Pacific and Africa and Middle East are higher than those in developed regions in Europe and America

The feedstock of alkylation unit is isobutane and butene by-product of FCC unit. The increasing global demand for alkylated oils has contributed to the increase in butene demand. Therefore, FCC multi-butene production technology has received widespread attention.

The butene-selective FCC additive (grade Evolve) developed by BASF Germany can meet the refinery's requirements for butene multi-production. The addition of Evolve additive to FCC catalysts can selectively increase butene yield with no negative impact on other liquid products such as gasoline and light cycle oil.

Evolve additive can be used to produce LPG with high olefin content, and the former is more selective for butene than propylene compared to the conventional olefin additive ZSM-5. The additive is suitable for some refineries that produce feedstock for alkylation units or are subject to limits on LPG and can produce more butene-rich LPG products.