Patent ID: 7943036

Claim:
A process for hydroprocessing a heavy oil feedstock, the process employs a plurality of contacting zones and at least one separation zone, the process comprising: providing a hydrogen containing gas feed; providing a slurry catalyst comprising an active catalyst in a hydrocarbon oil diluent; combining at least a portion of the hydrogen containing gas feed, at least a portion of the heavy oil feedstock, and at least a portion of the slurry catalyst in a first contacting zone under hydrocracking conditions at a sufficient temperature and a sufficient pressure to convert at least a portion of the heavy oil feedstock to lower boiling hydrocarbons, forming upgraded products; sending a first effluent stream from the first contacting zone comprising a mixture of the upgraded products, the slurry catalyst, the hydrogen containing gas, and unconverted heavy oil feedstock as a feed to a first separation zone, wherein volatile upgraded products are removed with the hydrogen containing gas as a first overhead stream, and the slurry catalyst and the unconverted heavy oil feedstock are removed as a first non-volatile stream; sending the first non-volatile stream from the first separation zone to a second contacting zone which is also maintained under hydrocracking conditions with additional hydrogen containing gas feed to convert at least a portion of the unconverted heavy oil feedstock to lower boiling hydrocarbons, forming additional upgraded products; sending a mixture comprising the additional upgraded products, the slurry catalyst, the additional hydrogen containing gas, and unconverted heavy oil feedstock to a second separation zone, whereby volatile additional upgraded products are removed with the additional hydrogen containing gas as an overhead stream, and the slurry catalyst and unconverted heavy oil feedstock are removed as a second non-volatile stream; wherein the plurality of contacting zones and separation zones are configured in a permutable fashion for the plurality of contacting zones and separation zones to operate in: a sequential mode; a parallel mode; a combination of parallel and sequential mode; all online; at least one online and at least one on stand-by; some online and some off-line; a parallel mode with the effluent stream from the contacting zone being sent to at least a separation zone in series with the contacting zone; a parallel mode with the effluent stream from the contacting zone being combined with an effluent stream from a different contacting zone and sent to the separation zone; and combinations thereof; wherein additional heavy oil feed is fed into the second contacting zone, and wherein the additional heavy oil feed is the same or different than the heavy oil feed to the first contacting zone; and wherein the plurality of contacting zones operate in sequential mode.