MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Corp. has let a contract to Fluor Corp. for a series of services related to the operator’s previously announced expansion project to increase production of ultralow-sulfur diesel by nearly 45% at affiliate Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd.’s (EPCL) 270,000-b/d Fawley refinery near Southampton, UK, reported Oil&Gas Journal.
Following its completion of front-end engineering design for the expansion - now known as the Fawley Strategy (FAST) project - Fluor will provide engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction on a reimbursable basis for the project, the service provider said.
Specifically, Fluor’s scope of work on the project includes design and construction of a new diesel hydrotreater and steam methane-reforming hydrogen plant as well as modifications to unidentified existing installations at the Fawley site.
With EPCL now granted planning permission from local regulatory authority the New Forest District Council Engineering, Fluor said it is currently leading engineering and procurement for the FAST project out of its Farnborough office in the UK.
Construction activities on the FAST expansion are scheduled to start by yearend.
Fluor disclosed neither a value nor duration of the contract.
The contract award follows ExxonMobil’s April final investment decision to proceed with the more than USD1-billion expansion project, which intends to help reduce the need to import diesel into the UK by adding a hydrotreating unit to remove sulfur from fuel, supported by a hydrogen plant that, combined, will also help improve the refinery’s overall energy efficiency.
In addition to logistics improvements, the project will increase ultralow-sulfur diesel production at the site by 38,000 b/d.
Pending regulatory approval, the FAST project is targeted for start-up in 2021.
Situated on the western side of Southampton Water, the Fawley refinery - the UK’s largest - features a mile-long marine terminal that annually handles about 2,000 ship movements and 22 million tonnes of crude and other products.
ExxonMobil previously said the Fawley expansion project comes as part of the company’s broader plans to increase earnings potential of its global downstream business by 2025.
As MRC wrote previously, on 24 September 2019, ExxonMobil Corp shut its 369,024 barrel-per-day (bpd) crude oil refinery in Beaumont, Texas, because of flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda. Exxon earlier that day shut the Beaumont chemical plant, which adjoins the refinery. The company operates a cracker with a capacity of 830,000 mt of ethylene and 195,000 mt of proplyelen per year, low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant with a capacity of 236,000 mt per year and linear low density polyethylene plant with a capacity of 727,000 tonnes per year.
We also remind that in September 2019, ExxonMobil announced plans to spend GBP140 million over the next two years in an additional investment program at its Fife ethylene plant (UK), which has a capacity of more than 800,000 t/y.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and PP.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 976,790 tonnes in January-September 2019, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
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.
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