PJSC Gazpromneft has established a R&D management structure to promote activities in the creation and development of oil refining technologies and catalysts based on the best research results obtained in Russia. The structure includes relevant R&D departments of the Oil refining Directorate, Omsk and Moscow Refineries, as well as the Engineering Council of the Downstream Unit. Since 2010, PJSC Gazpromneft has achieved a number of important steps to promote innovative activities in the area: innovative strategy has been developed; strategic technological partnerships have been arranged with the leading Russian developers (Boreskov Institute of Catalysis and Institute for Hydrocarbon Processing) of oil refining technologies and catalysts; a system for intellectual property control and protection has been created; a primary infrastructure for commercialization of the developed technologies and catalysts has been established on the basis of plants, engineering departments and laboratories of the Moscow and Omsk Refineries. The undertaken steps have allowed the Company to succeed in lab-scale studies and to go ahead with pilot and semicommercial testing of a number of key R&D projects.

A new catalyst GIP-14 was developed for isodeparaffinization of diesel fuels. The catalyst was prepared based on a mixture of zeolites with different pore structures and aperture size using transition metals Ni and Mo as hydrogenating agents. The stability of the catalyst operation was studied. In the process achieved at 305–310 °C and feed flow rate 3 h-1, the yield of diesel fuel was 92–93 wt.% while the cold filter plugging point was below –38 °C. The obtained diesel fuel sample was certified in terms of the State Standard 55475-2013. The developed catalyst and its imported analogue were compared to conclude that GIP-14 is up to the world level and provides the production of diesel fuel with the required low-temperature characteristics under milder conditions (300 °C against 320–325 °C with the imported catalyst) and at a higher feed flow rate (3 h–1 against 2 h–1). The industrial production of the catalyst GIP-14 is to be arranged in 2017.

A NiMo sulfide system with an alumina support containing aluminosilica phosphate SAPO-31 (catalyst NiMo/Al₂O₃-SAP) was suggested for synthesis of high-quality diesel fuel from a mixture of straight-run diesel fraction and light catcracking gasoil (LCCG). Against the traditional NiMo/Al₂O₃ or CoMo/Al₂O₃ sulfide catalysts, this catalyst was demonstrated to provide production of higher quality diesel fuel through hydroupgrading of the feedstock containing 30 wt.% LCCG. The fact that the proportion of aliphatic hydrocarbons is higher in the products than in the feedstock indicates the activity of the NiMo/Al₂O₃-SAP catalyst to ring opening. Application of the suggested catalyst will allow the quality of diesel fuels to be improved during hydroupgrading of the LCCG-containing feedstock.

Industrial testing of the developed technology for reactivation of the CoMo/Al₂O₃ catalysts for deep hydrotreatment of diesel fuel was the oxidative regeneration of the catalyst followed by the treatment with organic complexing agents. A series of analytic and physicochemical techniques were used for studying samples of the catalyst, both fresh and at different stages of the reactivation. The chemical composition, textural parameters, mechanical strength and the structure of the active sulfide component were determined (TEM, XPS). Catalytic and life (360 h) tests were conducted using hydrotreatment of the straight-run diesel fraction. The physicochemical and catalytic properties of the sample were demonstrated to restore after the said treatments. The reactivated industrial catalyst for the deep hydrotreatment was loaded to an industrial reactor L-24-6 and demonstrated the stable operation in purifying the straight-run diesel fuel (containing up to 10 % of light catcracking gasoil) to provide no more than 10 ppm of the residual sulfur. The results obtained were compared to the performance of fresh industrial catalysts to show that the developed technology ensures practically complete restoration of properties of the deactivation catalysts.

A new technology for alkylation over the AlkyRAN-GPN catalyst was developed. The performance and the mass balance achieved using the developed technology is competitive to the parameters of currently employed processes for alkylation with sulfuric acid and hydrogen fluoride. The data on the influence of temperature, pressure, isobutane : olefin ratio, feed flow rate on the process parameters are reported and the optimal conditions recommended. The use of a sectional reactor is shown to allow the isobutane : olefin ratio and the total alkylate concentration in the reaction products to be increased at the constant inlet isobutane : olefin ratio. The service cycle of the catalyst also increases while the process productivity and selectivity does not decrease. The use of faujasite-based zeolites in their calcium-rare-earth and ultrastable forms is rationalized: they provide the highest conversions of olefin and the best yield of alkylgasoline. The construction of a demonstration setup (1 t of alkylate per day) for testing the new technology of isobutane alkylation with olefins over heterogeneous catalysts is in progress. The results obtained will be used for preparation of the engineering bases of the large-scale unit. The first industrial unit for alkylation over a heterogeneous catalyst (100,000 t of alkylgasoline/y) is to be erected at JSC Gazpromneft-Moscow Refinery.

The suggested new method for synthesis of high-octane components from the butane-butylene fraction (BBF) includes two stages. At the first stage, BBF olefins are oxidized at a high selectivity with N2O to carbonyl compounds without formation of deep oxidation products and water. This is a non-catalytic gas phase process achieved in a flow reactor at 400 °C and 2 MPa, conversions of both olefins and nitrogen suboxide being high. The octane number of mixed oxidation products is 118-133 (RON) and 99-104 (MON). The second stage is gas-phase hydrogenation of the mixed carbonyl compounds with hydrogen in the presence of the Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst at 150–160 °C in a flow reactor. The aldehydes are transformed to alcohols, while ketones may remain among the products under certain conditions. The octane number of mixed hydrogenation products is 111-112 (RON) and 95-96 (MON) that is inferior to that of the BBF oxidation product but superior to that of the alkylate produced by the traditional processes of butane alkylation with isobutane (95-97 RON, 93-95 MON). The application of the suggested process for synthesis of high-octane components may be of practical importance when concentrated waste of nitrogen suboxide is available.

A new CoMo catalyst was developed for selective hydrotreatment of FCC gasoline to provide no more than 10 ppm of sulfur in the hydrotreated gasoline and no more than 1,0 point RON decrease against the initial RON. The new catalyst allows the FCC gasoline not to be prefractionated into light and heavy fractions before its hydrotreatment. The hydrotreatment conditions are as follows: feed flow rate 2,2 h–1, 270 °C, 2,5 MPa, H₂/feed = 150 m³/m³. The high degree of hydrodesulfurization at a minimal decrease in RON is achieved owing to the high catalyst activity to hydrodesulfurization of the sulfur-containing components and to conversion of reactive high-octane olefins of the FCC gasoline to their less reactive derivatives with the high octane numbers. The catalyst is a CoMoS phase on the support containing amorphous aluminosilicate and γ-Al₂O₃. The method for the catalyst preparation is adapted to the Russian industrial facilities and to the feedstock available in Russia. Application of the hydrotreatment process based on this catalyst does not need considerable reconstruction of the facilities available at Russian refineries but provide residual sulfur content less than 10 ppm in the hydrotreated FCC gasoline.

A process for upgrading of low-rank gasoline fractions without the use of molecular hydrogen and a zeolite-containing catalyst for the process was developed by the Institute for Hydrocarbon Processing and JSC Gazpromneft-Omsk Refinery. In processing a mixture of coking gasoline and straight-run gasoline fraction (62–85 °C), the contents of unsaturated and sulfur compounds are allowed to decrease by 90–95 wt.% and by 95–99 wt.%, respectively, and the octane number to increase by 3–5 points. The catalyst is based on the ultrastable HREE zeolite Y produced by the JSC Gazpromneft-Omsk Refinery. The technology is unique, there are no analogues known in the world.

A series of cracking catalysts were developed by the Institute for Hydrocarbon Processing and are produced at the JSC Gazpromneft-Omsk Refinery. There are no world analogues for the unique technology for their production. Specifically, the catalysts are prepared using lamellar zeolite Y with crystals of 0,3–0,5 mm in size and a special matrix consisting of amorphous aluminosilicate, alumina and montmorillonite. At present the catalysts are loaded in four industrial setups with a total feed rate of ca. 7,000,000 t/y. Application of the new technological approaches makes it possible to produce the catalysts that provide the yields of gasoline fractions more than 60 wt.%.

Main steps of the development of the technology for synthesis of a catalyst based on high-silica zeolite ZSM-5 for oligomerization of butane-butylene fraction (BBF) are reported. Application of a new procedure for the zeolite surface modification makes it possible to improve the selectivity and yield of the target product (against the known analogues), to synthesize more branched (and, hence, with a higher octane numbers) oligomers at lower pressures. Introduction of a metal-promoter, Ga, provides 0,9 % higher yield of the target gasoline fraction

as compared to that over the non-promoted catalyst. Comparative pilot testing of the samples of industrial (BAC-70U) and developed (Ga-ZSM-5/Al2O3) catalysts for BBF oligomerization at 300 °C, feed flow rate 1,5 mL BBF/(mL cat·h) showed that the yield of the target fraction

is 7 % higher over the modified ZSM-5 than over BAC-70U. Throughout the testing (191 h), a higher quality of the oligomerizate produced over Ga-ZSM-5/Al₂O₃ was observed: MON was 2 points higher and concentration of gums twice as little. The results obtained during studies and

testing were used for the development and industrial implementation of the technology for the production of the zeolite-containing catalyst COB-1 for oligomerization. A 2,5 t batch of the industrial catalyst was produced by September 2016 at the facilities of the Redkino Catalyst

Company. The next important step in the implementation of the Gazpromneft strategy for innovative development in oil refining is to achieve a test run of the new catalyst using the industrial combined setup for the production of MTBE and oligomerizate at the Gazpromneft-Moscow Refinery. The use of COB-1 at the Refinery will be an important step to improve efficiency of the process for synthesis of high-margin products – components of the commercial motor gasoline.

New Russian catalysts for deep hydrotreatment and hydrocracking of vacuum gasoil (VGO) were developed at the Boreskov Institute of catalysis in cooperation with the Institute for Hydrocarbon Processing and Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis. The work was supported by the JSC Gazpromneft-Omsk Refinery under the Complex Project «Creation of the technology for the production of import-substituting catalysts for deep hydroconversion of vacuum gasoil» in the framework of the Federal Targeted Program “Research and Development in Priority Areas of the Scientific and Technological Complex of Russia for 2014–2020”. The high efficiency of the catalysts was experimentally proved. Preliminary works on implementation of the developed technologies for the production of the VGO hydrotreatment and hydrocracking catalysts including production of the catalyst components (amorphous aluminosilicates, zeolites) are in progress now.