13th November: Global refining update

Germany
Klesch of Switzerland has made an agreement with Barclays for it to supply crude oil to its German refinery. The contract is reported to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a month. The contract has been won from Glencore Xstrata who previously supplied the 100 00 bpd plant.

India
Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd has announced that it is aiming to get the Vizag refinery back online at full capacity by the first week of February 2014. The refinery is at the moment operating at 70% capacity after a fire in the cooling tower during August of this year. HPCL are hopeful that the plant’s processing capacity will be up to 85% by the end of this year.

Iran
It has been announced by NIORDC that China is going to finance the development of refineries in the country. This is in contrast to recent reports that the Chinese had pulled out of financing a petrochemical project in Iran and the plans had been suspended.

Libya
It has been announced that protesters have shut down a refinery in western Libya. The shutdown follows government announcements that it may not be able to cover all expenditures due to a 60% disruption in Libyan oil exports.

Poland
The Grupa Lotos Gdansk refinery has chosen Metso’s device management solution. The technology was designed to improve the availability of critical spare parts for maintenance activities while reducing overall costs associated with stocking spare parts. As part of the contract, Metso is also going to supply onsite supervision at the refinery to ensure that daily maintenance and turnaround work meets with set standards.

Uganda
There has been interest from over 50 firms around the world in constructing and operating the first refinery in Uganda’s Lake Albert region. Plans to construct the refinery follow plans set out by the National Oil and Gas Policy for Uganda.

USA
In March 2014 Phillips 66 will shut an alkylation unit at the Borger refinery, Texas. The information of this work has apparently been leaked by someone familiar with the plant and has said that the work will begin in the first week of the month.

HollyFrontier Corporation has announced that its subsidiary is reducing crude throughput at the Navajo refinery due to refinery wastewater constraints. Based on the revised operational plan for the Navajo refinery, HFC fourth quarter total crude throughput is expected to be approximately 376 000 bpd based upon the company’s current operational outlook.

Edited from various sources by Claira Lloyd

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/13112013/13_nov_refining_update/