Hydroprocessing conditions optimized on the bench scale are used to help design commercial hydroprocesses. To effect a greater yield of lighter products from the feedstock, the bottoms or residuum is fractionated from a hydrotreated oil and recycled with fresh feed through a hydrocracker. Often the equipment necessary to recycle the residuum is not available in bench scale hydroprocessing. Therefore, the components of an oil processed by bench scale equipment are likely to be different from the components of an oil processed by commercial scale equipment which includes recycle. Hydroprocessing conditions such as catalyst activity and hydrogen consumption will be effected by differences in oils.