MOL Group lets contract for Danube refinery

Sept. 16, 2020
MOL Group let a contract to Frames Group BV to supply a new hydrogen recovery and purification system for converting low-purity hydrogen by-product into a high-purity gas stream for subsequent processing at its Duna refinery near Budapest.

Hungary’s MOL Group has let a contract to Frames Group BV, Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, to supply a new hydrogen recovery and purification system for converting low-purity hydrogen by-product into a high-purity gas stream for subsequent processing at its 8.1-million tonnes/year Duna refinery along the Danube River in Százhalombatta, near Budapest.

As part of the contract, Frames will deliver its skid-mounted, ready-to-install hydrogen recovery and purification system that—equipped with highly sensitive membrane technology from strategic partner Membrane Technology and Research Inc.—will recover hydrogen from vent recycled gas produced by the refinery’s mild hydrocracking unit to improve overall efficiency of hydrogen recovery at the refinery, as well as reduce operations costs at the site, the service provider said.

Alongside supply of the system, Frames also will provide site interface engineering and on-site supervision during installation, commissioning, and system startup.

The new hydrogen recovery and purification system at the Duna refinery comes as part of MOL Group’s ongoing commitment to improving efficiency of its processing operations, which in this case, will allow the Dana refinery reduce the volume of makeup hydrogen it receives from hydrogen plants by maximizing use of hydrogen already produced at the site, according to Frames.

The service provider disclosed neither a value of the contract nor a timeframe for startup of the hydrogen recovery system.

This latest contract follows MOL Group’s previous award to Frames for supply of its proprietary desalters (electrostatic coalescers) to be installed in the Duna refinery’s crude distillation unit as part of a new project to enable the site to process a broader range of crudes (OGJ Online, Mar. 15, 2019).