State-owned Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (Enap) subsidiary Enap Refinerías SA has let a contract to DuPont Clean Technologies, a division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., to provide technology licensing for a new unit aimed at reducing and controlling atmospheric emissions from the operator’s 104,000-b/d Aconcagua refinery in Concón, in Chile’s Valparaíso region.
As part of the contract, DuPont Clean Technologies will deliver technology licensing and equipment for its proprietary BELCO wet scrubbing system to improve emissions control from the refinery’s 31,449-b/sd fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), the service provider said on Jan. 15.
While DuPont did not disclose a timeline for commissioning, the service provider did confirm that, once in operation, the new BELCO wet scrubber will reduce sulfur oxide (SOx) and particulate emissions from the FCCU to well below Chilean emissions requirements.
This latest contract for the Aconcagua refinery follows Enap’s previous contract award to DuPont Clean Technologies for a BELCO wet scrubber for the FCCU at Enap Refinerías’ 116,000-b/d Bío Bío refinery at Hualpén, in Chile’s Bío Bío region (OGJ Online, Jan. 7, 2020; Apr. 30, 2018).
The wet gas scrubbers at Enap’s Aconcagua and Bío Bío refineries come as part of the operator’s program to fulfill several short and long-term commitments to Chilean legal and regulatory authorities under which Enap pledges to invest in projects and initiatives intended to reduce impacts of its refining operations on the surrounding environment (OGJ Online, Jan. 4, 2017).
In a Sept. 30, 2020, report to investors, Enap Refinerías said environmental projects and initiatives defined for 2020 at the Aconcagua refinery form part of its long-term work plan aimed at identifying and implementing improvements related to noise emissions, monitoring of atmospheric emissions, and execution of work to bring the site into compliance with government requirements for prevention and atmospheric decontamination of Concón, Quintero, and Puchuncaví. As of late-September 2020, the operator had allocated $756 million for the various projects to improve environmental conditions at Aconcagua, according to the report. In its 2019 annual report to investors, Enap said that, as of Dec. 31, 2019, it had spent $604 million on these same types of initiatives to reduce environmental impacts at the Aconcagua refinery.
In mid-2020, Enap Refinerías also commissioned a cogenerator at the Aconcagua refinery that—operating on 100% natural gas—delivers a permanent supply of steam and electricity to enable safer and more efficient refining operations, as well as reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions at the site by 320 tonnes/year, the operator said in a June 24, 2020 release.
