commercially available alumina having a surface area of abut 175 square meters per gram carrying nickel cobalt and molybdenum wherein the nickel amounted to 0 5 weight percent of the extrudate the cobalt 1 0 weight percent and the molybdenum 8 0 weight percent in hydrogenation reactions using this catalyst the amounts of metals as defined has been found to give optimum results in another two runs the catalyst was similar except that the extrudate carried 3 0 weight percent nickel 5 0 weight percent titanium and 8 0 weight percent molybdenum in the remaining runs an inert packing crushed quartz chips having a size in excess of 8 mesh was used in each of the runs the slurry as defined above was passed through the reaction zones with hydrogen in runs nos 1 and 2 a stream of pure hydrogen was used in runs nos 3 to 6 a hydrogen rich stream was employed containing 95 volume percent hydrogen 3 5 volume percent methane 0 4 weight percent propane and 0 1 weight percent butane the remaining pertinent information relating to the runs is summarized below in table ii table ii__________________________________________________________________________run no i ii iii iv v vi__________________________________________________________________________catalyst or packing nicomo nitimo quartz nicomo nitimo quartz chips chipsvolume of catalyst orpacking c c 1000 1000 1140 980 1086 1140catalyst density 0 73 0 82 1 82 0 73 0 82 1 58liquid hourly spacevelocity lhsv 1 26 0 94 0 92 0 94 0 93 1 15liquid feed rate kgs per hour 4 5 3 6 3 6 4 5 3 6 3 6hydrogen partial pressure 3500 3500 3000 3900 3900 3900pounds per square inchabsolute.