Oil and Gas Journal's semiannual Worldwide Construction Update shows an increase in refining construction activity compared with the previous edition of the update (OGJ, Nov.5, 2012, p. 48). Following are details from the latest survey, which is available on OGJ Online (see box).
Refining
In US refining news, CHS Inc., St. Paul, Minn., will boost refining capacity at the 85,000 b/d National Cooperative Refinery Association facility at McPherson, Kan., to 100,000 b/d by 2016 in a $327 million project (OGJ Online, Mar. 12, 2013). Completion will take place in phases during the second half of 2015 and the first months of 2016, with production expected in early 2016. The expansion will occur alongside construction of a $555 million replacement coker already in progress (OGJ, Dec. 3, 2012, p. 100).
The Three Affiliated Tribes is planning to break ground on a $400 million refinery near Makoti, ND. Rich Mayer, the project's chief executive, said the Thunder Butte Petroleum Services refinery will be capable of turning 20,000 b/d of Bakken crude oil into diesel fuel, propane, and naphtha. The tribes are working on the initial phases of engineering and completing financing, Mayer said.
Makoti is near the northeastern corner of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, about 30 miles southwest of Minot. The tribes began working on the refinery project about 10 years ago. Various federal permits and tribe approvals were required before construction could start.
OGJ subscribers can download free of charge the 2013 Worldwide Construction Update tables at www.ogjonline.com: Click on OGJ Subscriber Surveys, then Worldwide Construction. This link also includes previous editions of the update. Historical spreadsheets of data presented here are available for purchase from PennEnergy Research. Visit www.ogj.com, and click the "Research" tab.
The Tesoro Mandan Refinery at Mandan is currently North Dakota's only refinery. Ground has been broken on the 20,000 b/d Dakota Prairie Refinery west of Dickinson.
In October 2012, Saudi Aramco completed contractor selection for the engineering, procurement, and construction of the Jazan refinery and terminal in southwest Saudi Arabia (OGJ Online, Oct. 22, 2012).
Aramco selected Saudi Arabian and international contractors, as follows:
• Petrofac Saudi Arabia Ltd., Saudi Arabia.
• Hyundai Arabia Co. Ltd., Saudi Arabia.
• Hanwha Engineering and Construction Corp., South Korea.
• SK Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd., South Korea.
• Tecnicas Reunidas, Spain.
• JGC Corp., Japan.
• Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd., Japan.
The project is slated for completion in late 2016. It will be a 400,000 b/d refinery with associated terminal on the Red Sea near Jazan. It will process Arabian Heavy and Arabian Medium crude oils, and produce gasoline, ultralow-sulfur diesel, benzene, and paraxylene. Operations at the refinery will be coordinated with a large integrated gasification combined cycle plant currently under the FEED contract.
Rafinerija Nafte Brod, operator of Bosnia and Herzegovina's only refinery, will use technologies from Honeywell's UOP LLC and ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Co. in an upgrade of its 240,000 b/d facility at Brod (OGJ Online, Oct. 24, 2012). The licensing agreement is the first under an alliance formed by UOP and EMRE last year.
The refiner will combine UOP Unicracking technology with EMRE's distillate and lubricant dewaxing technologies to increase fuel and lube yields. The new complex will upgrade more than 45,000 b/sd of kerosene, diesel, and vacuum gas oil into high-quality diesel and jet fuels.
Cambodian Petrochemical Co. Ltd. awarded a licensing and engineering services contract to KBR for a hydrocracker at a 5-million tonne/year (tpy) refinery planned in Cambodia. Tinajin Petrochemical Engineering Design Co. Ltd. is engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the 1.2 million tpy unit, which will use Veba Combi Cracking technology.
Meanwhile, Lukoil awarded a contract to Tecnicas Reunidas of Spain covering a vacuum gas oil deep conversion complex at its 11 million tpy Volgograd refinery in Russia (OGJ Online, Feb. 9, 2013). The project will include what Lukoil calls one of the world's largest VGO light hydrocracker units with a capacity of 3.5 million tpy as well as a combined sulfur unit and hydrogen production facilities.
The contract, worth more than $1.4 billion, covers detailed engineering, supply of materials and equipment, construction, and support of start-up operations. Work will be completed by the end of 2015. The project will boost the refinery's output of Euro-5 diesel by 1.8 million tpy.
Petrochemical
Dow Chemical Co., Houston, awarded Technip the front-end engineering and design contract and cracking furnaces engineering and procurement services for an ethylene production plant at Dow's operations in Freeport, Tex. (OGJ Online, Oct. 29, 2012). The 1.5-million tpy plant will be based on low-cost ethane feedstock. Dow expects plant start-up to be in 2017.
PetroChina Co. Ltd. has started up an 800,000 tpy ethylene unit at its Fushun Petrochemical Co. refining and petrochemical complex in Liaoning Province, China, reports China National Petroleum Corp. All eight production units at the complex are in operation, bringing crude capacity to 11.5 million tpy and ethylene capacity to 1 million tpy, CNPC said (OGJ Online, Nov. 5, 2012).
LNG
GAIL (India) Ltd., Mumbai, commissioned the 5-million tpy Dabhol LNG terminal at Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, about 210 miles south of Mumbai (OGJ Online, Jan. 22, 2013). The terminal will send out natural gas to the southern and western states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, reported GAIL.
The terminal is operated by RGPPL, a joint venture of GAIL and NTPC Ltd., India's largest power company. GAIL Chairman and Managing Director Shri BC Tripathi also said the new terminal initially would expand over 2-3 years to 7.5 million tpy of capacity, then to 10 million tpy.
In December 2012, Petronas Carigali Canada Ltd. and Progress Energy Resources Corp., Calgary, owners of what they have now named Pacific Northwest LNG moved the project to pre-FEED following a successful feasibility study (OGJ Online, Dec. 5, 2012).
Plans calls for the plant to be built on Lelu Island, off the Hecate Strait in the District of Port Edward, BC, and will include two, 3.8-million tpy trains with expansion capability for a third. Petronas and Progress reiterated they expect a final investment decision in late 2014, with first LNG exports in 2018.
Natural gas
MarkWest Energy Partners and Antero Resources began operations at the 200-MMcfd Sherwood I processing plant and on the first phase of a high-pressure gas gathering system in Harrison and Doddridge counties, W.Va. (OGJ Online, Nov. 2, 2012).
MarkWest Energy Partners, Denver, began operations at the first of three planned Mobley gas processing plants in Wetzel County, W.Va. (OGJ Online, Dec. 14, 2012). The 200-MMcfd plant processes rich-gas production from the Marcellus shale by EQT Corp., Pittsburgh, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp., Houston, and other producers.
In November 2012, Enterprise Products Partners LP, Houston, said its sixth NGL fractionator at Mont Belvieu, Tex., is operational (OGJ Online, Nov. 1, 2012).
DCP Midstream LLC and DCP Midstream Partners LP plan to build a cryogenic plant to provide natural gas processing services for producers in the liquids-rich Eagle Ford shale of South Texas (OGJ Online, Dec. 11, 2012). The new Goliad plant will be constructed by the previously announced DCP Eagle Ford joint venture, which is owned two-thirds by DCP Midstream and one-third by DCP Midstream Partners. The 200-MMcfd Goliad plant will be completed by first-quarter 2014.
In December 2012, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd., Melbourne, awarded a $550 million contract to CB&I, Houston, for work at Esso's Longford, Victoria, gas plant (OGJ Online, Jan. 8, 2013).
The contract includes engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction of the 400-MMcfd Longford gas conditioning plant, which will receive production from Kipper, Tuna, and Turrum fields in the Bass Strait of southeast Australia.
Other gas, sulfur
Sasol proceeded with front-end engineering and design for an integrated gas-to-liquids plant and ethane cracker with downstream derivatives at the company's site near Lake Charles, La. (OGJ Online, Dec. 3, 2012). The GTL plant will be the first of its kind in the US and produce 4 million tpy of transportation fuel, including GTL diesel and other chemicals. Sasol estimates current project costs for the plant at $11-14 billion. The project will be delivered in two phases, each consisting of 48,000 b/d. The first phase is to begin operations in 2018, the second in 2019.
Meanwhile, Gazprom of Russia and MND Group of the Czech Republic have agreed to build an underground natural gas storage facility in Damborice, South Moravia (OGJ Online, Mar. 21, 2013). With working gas capacity totaling 448 million cu m, the facility will be one of the largest facilities of its kind in the Czech Republic. The companies agreed to invest $128 million in equal shares of the project.
In Oman, Black & Veatch is working on sulfur projects for Oman Refineries & Petrochemicals. A project in Sohar involves a 300-tonne/day tail gas treating unit. Completion is scheduled for 2013.
Pipelines
Energy Transfer Partners LP and Regency Energy Partners LP have placed their 570-mile Lone Star West Texas Gateway NGL Pipeline into service ahead of schedule. The 16-in. OD pipeline owned by Lone Star NGL LLC, a joint venture of the two partnerships, transports NGL produced in the Permian and Delaware basins in West Texas to Mont Belvieu, Tex.(OGJ Online, Dec. 7, 2012).
The pipeline, extending from Winkler County in West Texas to ETP's Jackson County processing plant in Jackson County, Tex., has an initial capacity of 209,000 b/d and is expandable.
ETP also began operations on its 130-mile Justice NGL Pipeline, running from the Jackson County processing facility to Mont Belvieu.
In March, China National Petroleum Corp. reported completion of an 880-km crude oil pipeline between Lanzhou, in Gansu Province, and Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, China (OGJ Online, Mar. 19, 2013).
The 610-mm pipeline can deliver 10 million tpy of crude oil. It has a design maximum pressure of 13.4 MPa and a fall head of 2,207 m.
The pipeline is to deliver 750 MMcfd of gas by 2015. It will carry gas from Iran Gas Trunkline 7 at Iranshahr to a connection with the Pakistani gas pipeline system near Nawabshah in Sind province, crossing the border near Chabahar.
Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission awarded Sempra Mexico a contract to build, own, and operate a 500-mile, $1 billion pipeline network connecting the northwestern Mexico states of Sonora and Sinaloa (OGJ Online, Oct. 26, 2012). The network will consist of two segments interconnecting with the US interstate pipeline system in Arizona, shipping natural gas to new and existing CFE power plants currently using fuel oil.
The first segment, a 36-in. OD, 310-mile pipeline, will run from Sasabe, south of Tucson, Ariz., to Guaymas, Sonora, shipping 770 MMcfd by late 2014. The second segment from Guaymas to El Oro, Sinaloa, is a 30-in. OD, 200-mile pipeline moving 510 MMcfd. CFE expects to start the second line third-quarter 2016. CFE has fully contracted system capacity under two 25-year firm contracts denominated in US dollars.
Pembina Pipeline Corp. plans to expand natural gas liquids and crude oil and condensate capacity on its Peace and Northern Pipeline Systems by a combined 108,000 b/d (OGJ Online, Nov. 8, 2012). Pembina will add 55,000 b/d of crude and condensate capacity to its Peace Pipeline system by mid to late-2014 and 53,000 b/d to its Northern NGL system by early to mid-2015.
The company said the expansions would accommodate increased volumes associated with strong drilling results and increased field liquids extraction by producers in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Pembina expects the projects to cost $545 million, plus $125 million to tie in producers.
