Mid February: Downstream construction and maintenance

Iran

Iran’s deputy oil minister has announced that the country will soon inaugurate the world’s largest refinery unit. The residual fluid catalytic cracking unit will have a processing capacity of 90 000 bpd. The Shazand Imam Kohomeini refinery in located in the central part of Iran.

Saudi Arabia

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been awarded a contract by Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Co. related to its Yanbu lube oil refinery. Jacobs will provide project management consulting services for a project to expand the facility. The work is expected to cost in the region of US$ 1 billion. Jacob’s offices in The Netherlands will be managing the project overall and will be aided by the company’s offices in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

Uganda

The Ugandan government is looking for investors to partner with to construct a new refinery in the country. The government can currently fund 20% of the construction costs, however, the government have not disclosed what the total cost will amount to.

USA

It has been announced that construction work on the US’s first refinery since the 1970s could start this spring. The diesel topping plant will be built in North Dakota with a processing capacity of 20 000 bpd. The plant will process mainly Bakken crude and is in the final permitting stages. It is expected that work will take around 20 months.

During the first week of February, both Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp. took refining units off line to proceed with repairs at their facilities. Valero shutdown the FCC and alkylation units at the Wilmington, California refinery. Tesoro took the hydrocracking unit offline at its Golden Eagle refinery, also in California.

BP’s Chief Executive, Bob Dudley has said that the company is unlikely to see the full financial benefits of the upgrade to its Indiana refinery until 2014. BP is spending US$ 4 billion the upgrade project to increase the facility’s output to 405 000 bpd. The work is expected to be completed in 2013 and will allow the plant to process heavy Canadian crude.

Edited from various sources by Claira Lloyd.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/12022013/mid_feb_maintenance_and_construction/