Production of renewable fuels in existing refinery assets: A cost-effective coprocessing strategy

Pradyut Kumar Dhar is an Assistant Manager at Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd.’s research and development (HPCL’s R&D) hydroprocessing group. He holds an MTech degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kanpur and a BE degree in chemical engineering from Jadavpur University in Kolkata. He has 5 yr of research experience in hydroprocessing, and his areas of interest include process intensification and hydroprocessing technology development.

Lavanya Meesala is an Assistant Manager at HPCL’s R&D center in Bangalore. She graduated in chemical engineering from the IIT at Roorkee. She has more than 10 yr of experience in renewable fuels hydroprocessing, biomass pyrolysis and gas treating. She has worked in world-class R&D centers and refineries around the world, and holds a patent in the area of green fuels.

Pramod Kumar is a Deputy General Manager in the Corporate R&D Center of Hindustan Petroleum in Bengaluru, India. He has more than 18 yr of experience in process design, research, engineering and technical services in the areas of FCC, visbreaking and delayed coking. He is responsible for commercialization of FCC feed nozzles and catalytic visbreaking processes. Mr. Kumar holds an MTech degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur. He also holds more than 10 patents in the area of FCC process and catalyst.

G. Valavarasu leads the hydroprocessing group as Deputy General Manager at HPCL’s R&D center in Bangalore. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Anna University in Chennai and has more than 22 yr of R&D experience in refining processes. He has published or presented approximately 50 research works for several international journals and conferences. Dr. Valavarasu is responsible for building the state-of-the-art hydroprocessing lab at HPCL’s R&D center in Bangalore. His research work also led to the commercial application of several processes in the refinery.

Peddy V. C. Rao is Chief General Manager at HPCL’s R&D center in Bangalore. He holds a PhD in chemical sciences from the IIT at Bombay, and has more than 26 yr of research experience in petrochemicals, petroleum/refining processes, catalysis, biofuels and resid upgrading. Dr. Rao holds more than 26 patents, both inside and outside of India, and has published approximately 80 research papers in international journals. He is also responsible for the developmentand commercialization of several products and processes.

Gandham Sriganesh leads HPCL’s R&D center in Bangalore as Executive Director of R&D. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Osmania University in Hyderabad. He has been associated with HPCL since 1982, and has worked in various capacities in the operations and technical divisions of HPCL’s Visakhapatnam and Mumbai refineries. He has handled capacity expansion and fuel quality upgradation projects at both refineries. He has published and presented several technical papers at national and international forums.