Process for the conversion of hydrocarbons

Claim 1

A process for the production of at least one atmospheric hydrocarbon oil distillate from a hydrocarbon oil residue obtained by atmospheric distillation which comprises (a) fractionating said residue by vacuum distillation into a vacuum distillate and a vacuum residue having an initial atmospheric boiling point above 500° C., (b) deasphalting said vacuum residue in a deasphalting zone by contact with a lower hydrocarbon sorbent to obtain a deasphalted oil which is passed to step (c) and asphalt, which is passed to step (e), (c) cracking said vacuum distillate and said deasphalted oil in a cracking zone selected from a catalytic cracking zone and a hydrocracking zone to obtain a cracked product, (d) fractionating said cracked product by fractionation distillation at essentially atmospheric pressure to obtain at least one light hydrocarbon distillate product, and residue, and recycling at least part of this cracked product as feed to the cracking zone, (e) hydrotreating said asphalt in a catalytic hydrotreating zone under such conditions that more than 50% by weight of the feed is converted into material which does not precipitate in a deasphalting step under the same conditions used to prepare said asphalt feed, to obtain a hydrotreated asphalt product, (f) fractionating said hydrotreated asphalt product by fractionation distillation at essentially atmospheric pressure to obtain at least one hydrotreated atmospheric distillate product and a hydrotreated atmospheric residue, (g) fractionating said hydrotreated atmospheric residue from step (f) by vacuum distillation into a hydrotreated vacuum distillate and a hydrotreated vacuum residue and recycling at least part of this hydrotreated vacuum residue to the deasphalting zone of step (b).