CNOOC Oil & Petrochemicals Co. Ltd., the refining arm of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), has completed successful performance testing of a previously commissioned vacuum gas oil (VGO) hydrotreater at subsidiary CNOOC Huizhou Petrochemicals Co. Ltd.’s two-phased 440,000-b/d Huizhou refinery in China’s Guangdong province (OGJ Online, Jan. 11, 2019).
Completed as of Sept. 24, the performance test certifies that the unit—based on E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. division DuPont Clean Technologies’ proprietary IsoTherming technology—is meeting performance guarantees, DuPont said.
Initially commissioned in late-September 2017 but operated at lower rates until recently due to market-driven reductions to throughputs at the refinery, the Huizhou IsoTherming VGO hydrotreater is designed to process 51,419 b/d of VGO into feedstock containing less than 1,000 wppm sulfur and less than 600 wppm nitrogen for the refinery’s FCC unit, according to DuPont.
The service provider did not disclose details regarding when the IsoTherming VGO hydrotreater would reach full operating rates.
DuPont did reveal, however, that CNOOC’s Huizhou refinery also chose the IsoTherming technology for a 71,637-b/d ultralow-sulfur diesel hydrotreating unit also commissioned in September 2017 at the site.
