Stefano Riva is BASF’s Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) Technical Service Manager. He has 30 yr of experience in the refining industry. After graduating in chemical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, he joined ExxonMobil, where he served for 8 yr in the FCC area. In 2002 he joined BASF, where he gained further FCC catalyst experience and now supports customers with FCC optimization and troubleshooting.
In these challenging times, fluidized catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) aim to improve margins by processing poorer- or different-quality feeds, while maintaining good yield performance.