Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for upgrading blends of catalytic slurry oil and steam cracker tar to form fuel and/or fuel blending products. The steam cracker tar can optionally correspond to a fluxed steam cracker tar that includes steam cracker gas oil and/or another type of gas oil or other diluent. It has been unexpectedly discovered that blends of catalytic slurry oil and steam cracker tar can be hydroprocessed under fixed bed conditions while reducing or minimizing the amount of coke formation on the hydroprocessing catalyst and/or while reducing or minimizing plugging of the fixed bed, as would be conventionally expected during fixed bed processing of a feed containing a substantial portion of steam cracker tar. Additionally or alternately, it has been unexpectedly discovered that formation of coke fines within steam cracker tar can be reduced or minimized by blending steam cracker tar with catalytic slurry oil.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for processing of challenged feedstocks to produce distillate fuel products, such as jet boiling range products and/or diesel boiling range products. The challenged feedstocks can have a high aromatics content, a low API gravity, and/or a low cetane index/cetane number. A feedstock can be processed to form distillate fuel products by processing the feedstock in reaction system including at least two stages. The first stage can perform an initial amount of hydrotreating and/or hydrocracking, while the second stage can include exposing a portion of the hydrotreated and/or hydrocracked effluent to a USY catalyst including a supported noble metal. The USY catalyst can have a desirable combination of catalyst properties. Processing a challenged feedstock in a second stage with the USY catalyst having a desirable combination of properties can allow for production of an increased yield of distillate fuel from the challenged feedstock.