The National Iranian Oil Co. has announced that it let a contract in April 1989 for the construction of a grassroots, 150,000-b/d refinery to be sited some 200 miles southwest of Tehran near a pipeline at Arak, Iran, according to the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum.
Startup of the refinery is scheduled for early 1993.
The contract for the refinery was awarded to a joint venture comprising JGC Corp., Tokyo, and Tecnologie Progetti Lavori SpA (formerly Technipetrol SpA), Rome. The contract price is $1.3 billion U.S.
The refinery will include crude distillation and downstream processes, making it suitable to produce a full complement of light products and asphalt. The refinery will be designed to charge Ahwaz Asmari crude oil of 31.7 API gravity and 1.66 wt % sulfur. The refinery will include steam and power generation facilities.
CONFIGURATION
The refinery's processing configuration will be based on the petroleum product demand pattern in Iran. Table 1 shows the processes, and their capacities, that will be built in the refinery.
The design production rates of the products that will be produced are shown in Table 2.
The continuous catalyst regeneration (CCR) reformer will be designed to operate at 100 research octane clear. At that severity, 90 RON regular and 97 RON premium gasolines can be produced without the addition of lead.
Facilities to manufacture jet fuels and various grades of fuel oil are also considered in the design. Paving grade and roofing-grade asphalt will also be produced.
All of the products, except the light naphtha and reformate, will be distributed to the domestic market. Light naphtha and reformate will be sent to a neighboring petrochemical complex.
CONTRACT SCOPE
The basic design of the catalytic reformer and distillate and gas oil hydrocracker units will be performed by UOP.
The basic detail design of the hydrogen plant reformer furnace will be carried out by Foster Wheeler, Italy.
Except for the above and the works that will be directly completed by NIOC, the joint venture is responsible for basic and detail design, material procurement, transportation, and construction of the refinery.
NIOC will directly complete the engineering and construction related to site preparation and grading, buildings, shops, API storage tanks, fresh water supply, and natural gas and emergency power from the national grid.
Crude oil pipeline debottlenecking, crude oil storage facilities at the terminal, product distribution depot including tankage, and associated facilities will also be designed and constructed directly by NIOC.
The refinery will be controlled by a distributed control system (DCS) that utilizes computerized process control.
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
A main objective of the project is technology transfer to Iran. A substantial investment has been made to train and develop Iranian personnel.
Full participation of Iranian engineers in certain areas of design and construction have been considered. Among these programs, complete training in basic design and detail design of crude and vacuum units, training of about 60 engineers for design and operation of the refinery, and training of more than 250 foremen and craftsmen is under way.
Basic and detail design of certain units, such as the CCR unit and hydrogen plant, will be performed in Iran by local engineering consultants under supervision of the joint venture contractors. Construction of certain units will be subcontracted to an Iranian construction contractor.
Local managers closely involved with the project are A. Farsh, project manager for the Arak refinery; S.M.R. Mirhadi, general manager, NIOC Refineries Engineering & Construction; K. Nezhand, senior consultant for the Arak refinery; and B. Razaghzadek, manager of design and engineering, NIOC Refineries Engineering & Construction.
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