Hie Shell Gasification Process (SGP)
The Shell gasification process (SGP) was developed in Shell’s research center in Amsterdam during the early 1950s primarily as a means of manufacturing synthesis gas from fuel oil. The first gasifier, using heavy fuel oil as feedstock, was brought on stream in 1956.
Some 140-150 units have been installed worldwide with a processing capacity of some 7 million t/y of residue. One typical reference plant processes about 240,000 t/y of residues of varying quality, which are bought on the open market, for the production of ammonia. Another, which was started up in 1972, produces a mixed product slate of ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen and is fed with about 350,000 t/y residue directly out of a visbreaker. An interesting reference includes a reduction gas plant for nickel furnaces, one of the few air-blown units in commercial operation. Operating capability covers pressures up to about 65 bar and unit reactor sizes up to 1.8 million Nm3/d syngas capacity.
The noncatalytic partial oxidation of hydrocarbons by the Shell gasification process (Figure 5-28) takes place in a refractory-lined reactor (Figure 5-27) that is fitted with a specially designed burner. The oxidant is preheated and mixed with steam prior to being fed to the burner. The burner and reactor geometry are so designed that this mixture of oxidant and steam is intimately mixed with the preheated feedstock. Originally, a pressure atomizing burner was used, but during the mid-1980s an improved со-annular design using blast atomizing was developed. This burner is capable of handling residues of up to 300 cSt at the burner (Weigner etal. 2002).