Chemometric analysis has been applied in this work to correlate ultraviolet spectra of middle distillates and vacuum gas oils with hydrocarbon type analytical data obtained by high resolution mass spectrometry.  The use of this methodology reduces the costs of chemical characterization of these types of petroleum fractions and may be applied to the characterization of diesel fuels and gas oils that are processed in fluid catalytic cracking or hydrotreating units.

Chemometric analysis by Partial Least Squares (PLS) has been applied in this work to correlate the ultraviolet spectrum of combined Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) feedstocks with their physicochemical properties. The prediction errors obtained in the validation process using refinery samples demonstrate the accuracy of the predicted properties. This new analytical methodology allows obtaining in one analysis detailed information about the most important physicochemical properties of FCC feedstocks and could be used as a valuable tool for operational analysis.