Facility to become the largest integrated refinery and petrochemicals plant in Kuwait

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell announced that Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) has awarded reconfiguration of refining and petrochemicals sections of its Al-Zour refinery to Honeywell UOP, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The newly designed complex will increase the plant’s output capacity of fuels and petrochemicals.

Honeywell UOP will revise the configuration and capacity of the refinery’s gasoline production facilities. In addition, Honeywell UOP will supply technology licenses, design services, key equipment, and state-of-the-art catalysts and adsorbents to produce clean-burning fuels, paraxylene, propylene and other petrochemicals.

"When completed, this will be the largest integrated refinery and petrochemicals plant ever constructed in Kuwait," said Jim Moshi, general manager for Middle East, Honeywell UOP. "In addition to aromatics and propylene, the Euro-V fuels it will produce will be the cornerstone of Kuwait’s clean fuels initiative."

The refinery’s gasoline section will include a world-scale 98,000 barrels per day (bpd) RFCC complex for production of propylene, gasoline, and petrochemical aromatics, and a UOP SelectfiningTM unit to produce low-sulfur gasoline blending components. Two UOP Merox™ units will be used to treat propane for propylene production, and isobutane to make clean-fuels blending components. Also included is an 11,800-bpd Butamer unit to convert normal butane to isobutane.

The petrochemicals section includes an aromatics complex that will produce 1.4 million metric tons per year of paraxylene. It will use the latest generation LD Parex aromatics technology, including the Sulfolane, Isomar and Tatoray processes. The CCR Platforming unit and naphtha hydrotreater have been expanded to meet the needs of the larger gasoline and aromatics complexes.

Honeywell UOP is a leading licensor of process technology for the production of aromatics. As of last year, Honeywell UOP licensed more than 100 complexes and more than 700 individual process units for the production of aromatics, including more than 300 CCR Platforming process units, 158 Sulfolane units, 80 Isomar units, 58 Tatoray units, 100 Parex units worldwide.

Over the last 50 years, Honeywell has delivered more than 2,300 projects for more than 165 customers in Kuwait. Honeywell is the first company to build "Made in Kuwait" solutions to power digital transformation across the country’s growing oil, gas and petrochemical sectors. The recently launched Honeywell Customer Solutions Center, located in Mina Abdullah enables product assembly and customer testing and acceptance to be consolidated under one roof, making it easier and faster for customers to deploy new technologies. Prior to that, the Company launched the Honeywell Automation College, which delivers global training capabilities locally through more than 300 courses specifically designed to address the requirements of Kuwait’s power and water, oil and gas, and automation industries.

The recently launched Honeywell Customer Solutions Center, located in Mina Abdullah, enables product assembly, customer testing and acceptance to be consolidated under one roof, making it easier and faster for customers to deploy new technologies. Prior to that, the company launched the Honeywell Automation College, which delivers global training capabilities locally through more than 300 courses specifically designed to address the requirements of Kuwait’s power and water, oil and gas, and automation industries.

As MRC reported earlier, in November 2018, Kuwait Petroleum Co said it prepared a study to transform its al-Zour refinery into a commercial one to increase its profitability.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Exxon Mobil Corp said that production at its 560,500-barrel-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas refinery has been reduced following a fire on Wednesday in the company’s adjoining olefins plant, reported Reuters.

Exxon said the production was reduced across the Baytown refining and petrochemical complex because of the fire in a propylene recovery unit, which has been shut down.

As MRC informed before, in late July 2019, ExxonMobil said it started production on a new high-performance polyethylene line at its Beaumont, Texas polyethylene (PE) plant. The expansion increases plant production capacity by 65 percent or 650,000 tons per year, bringing site capacity to nearly 1.7 million tons per year.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Salalah Methanol Co (SMC) is likely to shut its methanol plant for turnaround, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Oman informed that the company has planned to undertake maintenance at the plant on August 23, 2019. The Plant is expected to remain under maintenance for around 18-20 days.

Located in Salalah, Oman, the plant has a production capacity of 1.3 million mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, SMC took off-stream its methanol plant in in Salalah for maintenance in early-April 2018. The plant remained under maintenance for around 6 weeks.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The 180,000 barrels per day Zeeland refinery in the Netherlands said in a statement it is expanding its diesel-producing hydrocracker unit with a third reactor, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The new unit arrived on July 18 and will be connected to the existing plant in 2020, the refinery said in a statement on its website.

The plant is owned by Total (TOTF.PA) and Russia’s Lukoil (LKOH.MM). The firms invested 40 million euros (?36.64 million) in the new unit, the statement said.

The addition is part of a global drive to increase diesel production ahead of a major change in marine fuel standards next year that requires vessel to use lower-sulphur fuels.

As MRC informed earlier, McDermott International, Inc. announced it has been awarded a significant contract by LUKOIL NizhegorodNefteorgSyntez, a subsidiary of JSC LUKOIL, for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the Delayed Coker Unit for the Deep Conversion Complex planned to be built in Kstovo, Russia.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defended his agency’s expanded use of waivers exempting refineries from the country’s biofuel law during a closed-door meeting with farm state senators last week, arguing the program has had no negative impact on ethanol demand, according to four sources with knowledge of the meeting, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s comments are a sign he may resist an overhaul of the so-called Small Refinery Exemption program, which President Donald Trump last month ordered members of his Cabinet to review based on complaints from the corn lobby. The EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are preparing to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the issue as soon as this week, two of the same sources said.

Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, refineries must blend corn-based ethanol into their gasoline or buy credits from those that do – a policy meant to help farmers and cut U.S. petroleum imports. But small facilities can secure exemptions from the program if they can prove to the EPA that complying would cause them financial hardship.

Since Trump took office, the EPA has more than quadrupled the number of waivers it has granted to refineries, saving the oil industry hundreds of millions of dollars, but enraging farmers who claim the move threatens demand for one of their staple products. Refiners dismiss the argument, saying ethanol demand has not been impacted.

Wheeler echoed the refining industry’s point of view in his meeting last Wednesday with the senators from corn-producing states, which included powerful Republican Chuck Grassley from Iowa, according to the four sources, who asked not to be named.

“We understand Wheeler has made a case that ethanol industry was not hurt by the small refinery waivers,” said one of the sources, an industry official with knowledge of the meeting. Another source said Wheeler attributed the reason behind weak ethanol demand as falling gasoline consumption, not the waiver program.

The EPA said in a statement emailed to Reuters that it “continues to implement the Renewable Fuel Standard program in accordance with the Clean Air Act, taking into consideration additional direction from Congress, recommendations from Department of Energy, and relevant court decisions."

It did not comment on the meeting. Renewable fuel (D6) credits for 2019 traded as low as 20 cents each on Tuesday, losing four cents from the previous session following this Reuters report on the meeting, traders said.

The waiver program has been a source of contention between the rivaling corn and oil industries for years now, but the tug of war between the groups has intensified in recent months, underscoring the rising political importance of the RFS policy.

Industry sources told Reuters in recent weeks that decisions on some 40 outstanding waiver applications, covering the 2018 compliance year, were nearly finalized before Trump intervened and demanded the review. Since then, the USDA and EPA have been in talks on how to redesign the waiver program but so far, no definitive solution has emerged.

During a visit to a refinery in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Wheeler said the agency was still processing them and was hoping to make decisions within the next few weeks, or at most a month.

Some refiners say they filed their applications far earlier than April, and say the EPA is already late. Past waivers have gone to small refineries owned by giants like Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp, along with a facility owned by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, according to a report by Reuters. That has raised accusations from the corn lobby that the EPA is misusing the program meant to protect the smallest fuel facilities from going bust.
MRC