The combustion of petroleum coke in large scale facilities has been limited due to its high sulphur content, but the increasing installation of flue-gas desulphurisation units makes possible the firing of petroleum coke either as a primary fuel or blended with coals. This study focuses on the behaviour of three fuel-grade petroleum cokes of different provenance under pulverised fuel combustion conditions. These cokes, ground and sieved 125-20 mum were fed to a drop tube reactor operating at 1300 degreesC under different atmospheres to produce chars with different combustion degrees. Char reactivity assessment was performed isothermally in a thermobalance at 550 degreesC and morphology and optical texture of the chars were studied by optical and scanning electron microscopy. Petroleum coke chars are composed of two main types of particles: (i) porous anisotropic particles that passed through a plastic stage and generated either cenospheric or network-like chars and (ii) angular particles with fine-mosaic optical texture that did not swell and show abundant contraction cleats. The relative proportions of both types of particles were very different in the three petroleum coke chars indicating significant differences in their devolatilisation patterns. The morphology and optical texture of the petroleum coke chars were related to their reactivity (as measured in a thermobalance) and to the characteristics (chemical composition and optical texture) of the parent petroleum cokes, in an attempt to understand the implications of their different devolatilisation behaviours on the combustion efficiency. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.