By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 5 -- North West Upgrading Inc., Calgary, has selected UOP LLC, Des Plaines, Ill., to design and license a new hydroprocessing unit to upgrade synthetic crude from Canadian bitumen. The unit will be part of an upgrader North West Upgrading is building 45 km northeast of Edmonton in Sturgeon County, Alta.
UOP will design an integrated distillate Unionfining and Unicracking unit to produce a synthetic crude oil blend. The unit will have parallel reactors for hydrotreating 31,750 b/sd of naphtha and distillate-range feedstock and partial conversion hydrocracking 27,200 b/sd of distillate and vacuum gas oil-range feedstock. A common section will stabilize reactor effluent and compress recycle gas.
The first stage of the three-phase project is to be complete in early 2010. It will have a design capacity of 50,000 b/d of bitumen, plus pipeline diluent.
The second and third phases, each having the same capacity, will proceed as markets develop.
