Alliance Oil Co., Moscow, is upgrading its 90,000 b/d Khabarovsk refinery in Russia’s Far East in a project that will push capacity to 100,000 b/d this year.
It has let a contract to Foster Wheeler AG’s Global Engineering & Construction Group covering construction management services for a segment of the work it calls the hydroprocessing project.
The complex covered by the contract includes a hydrocracker, hydrotreater, hydrogen unit, amine regeneration unit, sour water stripper, sulfur recovery unit, vapor recovery unit, waste water treatment unit, ground flare, tank farm, and pump houses. The hydrogen unit will use Foster Wheeler technology for steam methane reforming.
Alliance last October said it had invested $1 billion of a planned $1.4 billion for the refinery upgrade. Projects completed at that time included installation of a 350,000 tonne/year catalytic reformer and conversion of the refinery to use of natural gas from fuel oil as operating fuel.
Last year Alliance completed an upgrade of an isomerization unit, bringing capacity to 120,000 tonnes/year.
Alliance expects to begin delivery gasoline meeting Euro-5 standards this year.
Alliance also is working on a pipeline connection to the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean crude oil pipeline. A first phase includes construction of a transfer unit and 28-km pipeline. Completion of the first phase will allow the refinery to receive 40,000 b/d from the ESPO pipeline next year.
A second phase, including construction of a pump station and upgrade of an existing pump station by pipeline owner Transneft, will increase delivery capacity to the refinery to 100,000 b/d in 2015.
