A COMBINATION PROCESS FOR UPGRADING RESIDUAL OILS

A combination process is described for upgrading residual oils (2) and high boiling portions thereof comprising metal contaminants and high boiling Conradson carbon forming compounds comprising a thermal visbreaking operation (7) with fluidizable inert solids followed by a fluidized zeolite catalytic cracking operation 12 processing demetallized products (8) (10) of the visbreaking operation, regenerating solid particulate of each operation under conditions to provide CO rich flue gases relied upon to generate steam used in each of the fluidized solids conversion operation and downstream product separation arrangements, separating the wet gas product stream of each operation in a common product recovery arrangement (22) and processing the high boiling feed product of visbreaking comprising up to 100 ppm Ni + V metal contaminant over a recycled crystalline zeolite cracking catalyst distributed in a sorbent matrix material comprising a high lever of Ni + V metal contaminant.