Delaware City Refining Co. LLC (DCR), a subsidiary of PBF Energy Inc., Parsippany, NJ, has entered a long-term agreement with Praxair Inc. to supply crude carbon dioxide to a CO2 recovery plant to be built at the site of DCR’s 190,000-b/sd refinery at Delaware City, Del.
CO2 produced at the Delaware City refinery will be used to feed a planned 450-tonne/day purification and liquefaction plant that Praxair will build, own, and operate at the refinery, Praxair said.
Praxair, which provides DCR nitrogen for processing operations at the refinery, will use the recovery plant to produce purified, beverage-quality liquid CO2 for distribution to merchant markets in the Northeast US, the company said.
While Praxair disclosed neither a value nor specific timetable for the project, the company did confirm deliveries of purified CO2 from the plant would begin in 2016.
Since acquiring the Delaware City refinery from Valero Energy Corp. in 2010 (OGJ Online, June 2, 2010), PBF Energy has invested in a series of projects designed to diversify crude feedstock availabilities for the refinery, which primarily processes a variety of medium to heavy, high-sulfur grades but can also run light, low-sulfur crudes as well, PBF Energy said in its annual 2014 report to investors.
In 2014, PBF Energy completed a project to expand the refinery’s heavy crude rail unloading terminal capability to 80,000 b/d from 40,000 b/d, while a second project to add additional unloading spots to the refinery’s dual-loop track light crude rail unloading facility increased its unloading capacity to 130,000 b/d from a previous 105,000 b/d, the company said.
PBF Energy said the rail expansions have enabled its Delaware City refinery, as well as the company’s nearby 180,000-b/sd refinery in Paulsboro, NJ, to increase feedstock of cost-advantaged crudes from western Canada and the US Midcontinent (West Texas Intermediate-based pricing) vs. the traditionally more expensive international crudes (Brent-based pricing) that deliver to the refineries from the Delaware River via ship or barge.
In addition to its 190,000-b/d atmospheric distillation capacity, the Delaware City refinery includes the following processing capacities: vacuum distillation, 102,000 b/sd; Fluid catalytic cracking, 82,000 b/sd; hydrotreating, 160,000 b/sd; hydrocracking, 18,000 b/sd; catalytic reforming, 43,000 b/sd; benzene-toluene extraction, 15,000 b/sd; butane isomerization, 6,000 b/sd; alkylation, 11,000 b/sd; polymerization, 16,000 b/sd; and fluid coking, 47,000 b/sd.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].