Neste Corp. has let a contract to Neste Jacobs Oy to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) services related to the reconfiguration of its 3 million-tonne/year Naantali refinery in Finland (OGJ Online, Oct. 7, 2014).
The Naantali reconfiguration comes as part of Neste’s October 2014 decision to improve the competitiveness of its overall refining operations by integrating its Naantali refinery with its 9.8 million-tpy Porvoo refinery so that the sites will operate as a single Finnish refining system, Neste and Neste Jacobs said.
While a precise value of the contract was not disclosed, Neste earlier said it would invest €60 million into Naantali’s reconfiguration, which is to involve various utility-related enhancements intended to simply the refinery’s structure and improve its processing efficiency ahead of its integration with Porvoo (OGJ Online, Apr. 20, 2015).
Following its reconfiguration, the Naantali will continue to produce diesel and specialty products, including solvents and bitumen, and maintain an important role in producing feedstocks, such as vacuum gas oil, for production lines in Porvoo.
Additionally, gasoline components produced at Naantali will be refined into finished products at Porvoo, with Naantali’s terminal capacity to be used for distributing Porvoo’s gasoline production.
Consolidation of the two Finnish refineries also will enable Neste to increase diesel output alongside a simultaneous reduction in heavy fuel oil production from the integrated unit.
With the €500-million refining consolidation and integration program proceeding as planned to date, the new Naantali-Porvoo operating model remains on schedule to be fully commissioned by mid-2017, Neste said.
Neste also previously let a contract to Neste Jacobs to provide EPCM services for a €200-million solvent deasphalt (SDA) feedstock pretreatment unit to be built at Porvoo as part of the integration project (OGJ Online, Aug. 5, 2015).
The SDA unit, which aims to improve the refinery’s production structure as well as optimize its crude slate, is scheduled for start-up in 2017.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
