Improve FCC margins by processing more vacuum residue in feed

is a post-graduate in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. He has been working with HPCL Corporate Research and Development as a research officer for the past three years. He is involved in various research projects in the areas of fluid catalytic cracking and resid upgrading.

Somanath Kukade is a Chief Manager, FCC at HPCL’s Green R&D Center in Bengaluru, India, and has 20 yr of research experience. He earned a Bch degree from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, and an MS degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, both in chemical engineering. Kukade has been granted 28 patents in the areas of FCC process and catalysts/additives. His areas of management include gas-solid fluidization, cold flow hydrodynamics, CFD, FCC process simulation, FCC catalyst evaluation/pilot plant studies, FCC process design and process development, technical services/troubleshooting for FCCUs, and the scale-up of catalyst and additives.

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.

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.

holds a PhD in physical chemistry and has over 30 years of experience in R&D in petroleum refining, petrochemicals and alternate fuels. He is the general manager of the HPCL R&D center in Bangalore. Dr. Choudary is responsible for the development and commercialization of over 20 patented products and processes. He has over 90 patents both in India and abroad, and has more than 85 research papers in referred international journals and four book chapters to his credit. He is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineers (INAE). His research interests include petroleum refinery processes, petrochemicals, catalysis, adsorptive separations, biofuels and alternate energies.