Uzbekneftegas is halfway through the construction schedule on a 50,000 b/d joint venture refinery being built at Karaoul Bazar, Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan is southeast of the Aral Sea, between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The new condensate refinery, located 55 km from Bukhara in southwestern Uzbekistan, is scheduled for completion next year. The refinery will be Uzbekistan's third.
Technip, Paris, is performing engineering, process licensing, procurement of equipment and materials, construction, and supervision of start-up and training (OGJ, May 22, 1995, p. 30). Investors in the project include Japan's Marubeni Corp. and China National Petroleum Corp.
Technip said, in a recent presentation in Houston about the refinery, that initial investment is about $400,000. The plant is designed to enable doubling of the capacity.
Technip says the project is the first lump-sum, turnkey project in the former Soviet Union.
Construction
Technip completed front-end engineering of the project in 1994. Uzbekneftegas let the construction contract to Technip in June 1995. By May of this year, all of the main equipment and most of the secondary materials had been ordered.
Mechanical completion is scheduled for June 1995.
The refinery comprises:
- A 50,000 b/d distillation unit based on Technip technology
- A 19,000 b/d naphtha hydrodesulfurization (HDS) unit licensed by Institut Franais du Petrole (IFP)
- A 16,000 b/d gas oil HDS unit, also licensed by IFP
- A 5,600 b/d kerosine sweetening unit
- Two 20 ton/day sulfur recovery trains
- A gas plant and sour water treatment facility.
Uzbekneftegas is supervising installation of off sites, including storage facilities, a control station, and two electrical substations.
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