Detail
Captain is low in sulfur, pour, metals, and asphaltenes which gives Captain many advantages over other heavy crude oils. Its product profile of low gas, high middle distillate, and high vacuum gas oil yields also make it an attractive opportunity choice. Captain’s vacuum residue is high quality with modest levels of sulfur, metals, carbon residue, and it is low in asphaltenes. Because of these characteristics and properties, most refiners will run Captain, as an opportunity crude blended, into their crude slate.

Gas
Captain contains only traces of gas and lighter fractions, which is an advantage for a refiner constrained by compressor capacity or gas recovery facilities – problems commonly associated with North Sea crude oils. This could allow certain refineries to increase crude throughput.

Naphtha
The Naphtha yield from Captain is low at 0.5% liquid volume (LV%), and it is a good reformer feedstock.

Kerosene
The kerosene yield from Captain is 7.5 LV%. It is low in sulfur, and possesses excellent cold flow properties (freeze, pour and cloud). When run as a blend, the kerosene from Captain and that from the typical base crude slate will leverage well to optimize and meet finished product specifications.

Middle Distillates
The distillate yield from Captain is 15.7 LV%, slightly higher than that from Brent crude. The Captain distillate sulfur level is as low as that of Brent at 0.25 WT%, an advantage in the manufacturing of today's low sulfur distillates.

The cold flow properties are excellent, although the distillate has a relatively high density and low cetane. Again, running Captain as a blend in the crude slate will allow the refiner to meet finished product specifications allowing the refiner to take advantage of Captain’s excellent cold flow characteristics when blended with more paraffinic stocks typically limited by fluidity.

Vacuum Gas Oil
The vacuum gasoil yield from Captain crude is particularly high, significantly higher than that from Brent. The sulfur level is only marginally higher than most North Sea crudes at 0.7 WT% - important when the gasoil is feed to crackers to manufacture high value incremental lower sulfur gasoline. The vacuum gasoil will give similar conversions on a fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) to the other heavy North Sea crudes coming into production.

In addition, for those manufacturing low viscosity index lubricating oil, preliminary data indicate that Captain vacuum gasoil is an excellent feedstock for the manufacture of these naphthenic base lube oils.

Vacuum Residuum
The vacuum residue yield from Captain crude is 26.9 LV%. It is low density and has a sulfur level of only 1.2 WT% - marginally lower than that of Brent.

The viscosity of the vacuum residue is also slightly lower than that of Brent. The asphaltene, carbon residue and metals levels are all very low, making the residue an excellent visbreaker feedstock.

The resulting fuel oil from either blending or visbreaking will be good quality and low sulfur - important with declining demand for high sulfur fuel oil. Alternatively, in a refinery with a coker, the vacuum residue will be an excellent coker feedstock, with low coke yield and a coke which should be suitable for premium anode grade production.