Petrobras loads first naphtha shipment from Abreu e Lima refinery

Jan. 15, 2015
Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has started sales of petrochemical naphtha produced at its recently commissioned 115,000-b/d Abreu e Lima refinery (Rnest) at the port of Suape, near Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state, with a first customer shipment now completed.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has started sales of petrochemical naphtha produced at its recently commissioned 115,000-b/d Abreu e Lima refinery (Rnest) at the port of Suape, near Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state, with a first customer shipment now completed (OGJ Online, Nov. 19, 2014).

Of the total 56,650 cu m of naphtha produced to date at Rnest’s distillation unit, an initial 18,063-cu m batch was loaded and dispatched on Jan. 13 to Sao Sebastiao, in Sao Paulo state, where it will be sold to customer Braskem SA, Petrobras said on Jan. 14.

Braskem will use the naphtha as feedstock to make intermediate products such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, and xylene at its manufacturing operations in the Brazilian states of Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul, and Sao Paulo, Petrobras said.

Petrobras began the start-up of furnaces in the atmospheric distillation unit at Rnest in late 2014, with the unit’s two furnaces officially entered into operation on Dec. 3 (OGJ Online, Dec. 5, 2014).

Once fully operational, Rnest will have the capacity to process 230,000 b/d of 16° gravity oil for the production of mainly low-sulfur diesel, but petroleum coke, LPG, and heavy coker gas oil, as well as naphtha.

Rnest’s second 115,000-b/d phase is scheduled to be commissioned in 2015 (OGJ Online, Nov. 6, 2014).