Patent ID: 8658019

Claim:
A process for cracking a heavy hydrocarbon feed in a steam cracker having a convection section and a radiant section, the process comprising: (a) passing the heavy hydrocarbon feed to a first zone of a vaporization unit and separating the feed into a first vapor stream and a first liquid stream in the first zone; (b) passing the first liquid stream to a second zone of the vaporization unit and contacting the first liquid stream with counter-current steam in the second zone of the vaporization unit so that the first liquid stream intimately mixes with the steam to produce a second vapor stream and a second liquid stream; (c) steam-cracking the first vapor stream and the second vapor stream in the radiant section of the steam cracker to produce a cracked effluent; (d) distilling the second liquid stream in a fractionator to obtain an overhead stream, a first side draw, a second side draw and a bottoms stream; (e) hydroprocessing the first side draw and second side draw to produce a hydroprocessed effluent; (f) separating the hydroprocessed effluent into a gas product and a liquid product; (g) passing the liquid product to the vaporization unit; (h) thermally cracking the bottoms stream from the fractionator in a coking drum to produce a coker effluent and coke; and (i) passing the coker effluent to the fractionator.