MOSCOW (MRC) -- Advanced Refining Technologies LLC (ART), the joint venture of US speciality chemicals and materials company W. R. Grace & Co. and US energy company Chevron, announced the award of an FCM agreement by state-owned Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco), according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The exclusive, 5-year agreement, which includes an option to renew for an additional five years, is valued at USD240 million, the largest catalyst management agreement ever signed in Bapco’s history.
As part of the BMP, Bapco will boost Bahrain’s oil refinery processing capacity from 267,000 (b/d) to 380,000 (b/d). In addition, ART will supply its Resid Hydrocracking catalyst technology for a wide variety of feedstocks to maximize bottom of the barrel upgrading. The technology is the industry-leading catalyst for metals capacity and sediment control. In addition, ART will provide FCM services for the reclamation of metals from spent catalysts.
When fully operational in 2023, the new Resid Hydrocracking unit known as 1RHCU will be the main profit centre for the Bapco Refinery. 1RHCU utilizes LC-FINING process technology licensed from Chevron Lummus Global (CLG), a joint venture between Chevron and Lummus Technology.
The unit is a two-train design with a processing capacity of 65,000 barrels per day. Bapco’s application of this state-of-the-art technology will be the first within the Middle East. Less than a dozen of these units exist globally, and the Bapco unit will be one of the largest examples.
As MRC reported earlier, in May 2019, Bapco completed multi-billion-dollar financing aimed at expanding its refining capacity to 380,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 267,000 bpd.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
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