Process for upgrading refinery heavy residues to petrochemicals

1. A process for upgrading refinery heavy residues to petrochemicals, comprising the steps of:

(a) separating a hydrocarbon feedstock in a distillation unit into a top overhead stream and a bottom stream, wherein the hydrocarbon feedstock consists of waxes, gas condensates, kerosene and diesel;

(b) feeding said bottom stream to a hydrocracking reaction area, wherein the process conditions prevailing in said hydrocracking area consist of a temperature of 300° C., a pressure of 300 kPa gauge and a Weight Hourly Space Velocity of 0.1 h −1 ;

(c) separating reaction products, which are generated from said reaction area of step (b) into a stream rich in mono-aromatics and in a stream rich in poly-aromatics, wherein the stream rich in mono-aromatics consists of mono-aromatics having a boiling range of from 70° C. to 217° C., and wherein said stream rich in poly-aromatics consists of poly-aromatics having a boiling range of from 217° C. and higher;

(d) feeding said stream rich in mono-aromatics to a gasoline hydrocracker unit, wherein the process conditions prevailing in said gasoline hydrocracker unit consist of a reaction temperature of 300° C., a pressure of 0.3 MPa gauge and a Weight Hourly Space Velocity (WHSV) of 0.1 h −1 ;

(e) feeding said stream rich in poly-aromatics to a ring opening reaction area; wherein the process conditions prevailing in said ring opening reaction area consist of a temperature of 100° C. and a pressure of 2 MPa together with from 50 to 300 kg of hydrogen per 1,000 kg of said stream rich in poly-aromatics over an aromatic hydrogenation catalyst and passing a resulting stream from said ring opening reaction area to a ring cleavage unit at a temperature of 200° C. and a pressure of 1 Mpa together with from 50 to 200 kg of hydrogen per 1,000 kg of said resulting stream over a ring cleavage catalyst;

feeding a stream rich in paraffins separated from the top overhead stream in step (a) into an isomerization unit and feeding the thus isomerized stream to a steam cracking unit;

separating reaction products of said gasoline hydrocracker of step (d) into an overhead gas stream comprising C2-C4 paraffins, hydrogen and methane and a bottom stream comprising aromatic hydrocarbon compounds and non-aromatic hydrocarbon compounds; feeding the overhead stream from the gasoline hydrocracker unit into the steam cracker unit;

separating the reaction products from the ring opening step (b) into a heavy fraction and a light fraction and feeding the heavy fraction of reaction products formed in the reaction area for ring opening into the gasoline hydrocracker unit; and

feeding the light fraction of reaction products formed in the reaction area for ring opening into the steam cracker unit.