Hungary’s MOL Group has let a contract to Frames Group BV, Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, to provide desalting equipment for subsidiary MOL PLC’s 166,500-b/d Duna refinery in Szazhalombatta, near Budapest.
As part of the contract, Frames will supply two of its proprietary desalters (electrostatic coalescers) to be installed in the refinery’s crude distillation unit as part of a new project to enable the site to process a broader range of crudes, the service provider said.
The desalters’ two-phase separators use an electrostatic field to remove water and salts from crude oil to protect downstream processes from unwanted corrosion and fouling.
The new crude desalting system comes as part of the operator’s program of crude basket diversification, increasing its current alternative seaborne crude intake to above 33% and allowing the processing of more than 50 additional crude grades, Frames said.
The contract award—for which no value was disclosed—follows an optimization study focused on identifying shortcomings of the refinery’s existing desalters as well as other changes to be implemented at the site to enable the refinery to handle more complex and challenging blends, the service provider said.
Further details about the proposed project—including a timeframe for its commissioning—have yet to be disclosed.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
