OMV Petrom SA, Bucharest, has started construction of a grassroots unit that will convert LPG components into Euro 5-quality gasoline and middle distillates at its 4.5-million tonne/year Petrobrazi refinery in the southeast region of Romania, near Ploiesti City (OGJ Online, Dec. 21, 2016).
First-phase construction, which began on July 19, will involve pouring about 3,000 cu m of concrete and laying 335 tonnes of steel for the Polyfuel unit’s foundation, OMV Petrom said.
The 200,000-tpy unit, which will be based on the first commercial use of Axen SA’s proprietary PolyFuel technology, will enable the refinery to shift as much as 50,000 tonnes of its current production of LPG components into higher-quality gasoline and middle distillates using a catalytic process.
Specifically, the unit will consist of three main reactors, several adsorbers, as well as columns and pumps, working together to convert LPGs and light-cracked naphtha from the refinery’s fluid catalytic cracking unit into diesel (OGJ Online, July 14, 2017).
The company did not disclose a detailed timeline for construction activities, but Neil Anthony Morgan, OMV Petrom’s executive board member responsible for downstream operations, said the €60-million project is going according to plan and remains on schedule to be fully commissioned in early 2019.
Since its privatization in 2005, OMV Petrom has invested about €1.2 billion in the Petrobrazi refinery, €600 million of which covered costs for the 2010-14 modernization program that involved upgrading, expanding, and replacing multiple installations at the refinery, including the gas oil hydrotreater, fluid catalytic cracker, coker, crude vacuum distillation unit, gas desulfurization and sulfur recovery unit, hydrogen plant, and refinery tank farms (OGJ Online, July 24, 2014).
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
