Azikel Group subsidiary Azikel Petroleum Ltd., Abuja, has let a contract to McDermott International Ltd. to provide engineering and procurement (EP) services for its previously announced 12,000-b/sd hydroskimming modular refinery in Obunagha-Gbarain, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.
As part of its work under the EP contract, McDermott will deliver detailed engineering and design of the inside battery limits (ISBL) modular refinery, as well as supply of equipment and all tagged items within the ISBL, the service provider said on July 14.
McDermott—which will execute engineering and design on the project from its offices in Tyler, Tex., and Mexico City—said it will source equipment for the project from both US and international suppliers.
Valued at between $50-250 million, the EP contract award follows McDermott’s previous work with Azikel Petroleum on the refinery, the most recent of which included delivery of extended front-end engineering design (FEED) services for the project, McDermott said.
Azikel has completed extensive site-preparation works for the project, including site reclamation and backfilling, as well as completion of roads, a perimeter wall, drainage, and security gates. Alongside construction of crude oil feedstock tanks, ongoing early works at the site also include construction of administrative, maintenance, and terminal operator buildings. Construction also remains under way on a 656-ft pier with shoreline protection, which will be used for delivery of refinery modules and other equipment to the site, according to McDermott.
Project overview
Previously planned for startup in 2018, the modular refinery’s ISBL unit—a contract for delivery of which Azikel Petroleum previously awarded to Ventech Engineering LLC, Houston—will include units for production of high-quality variants of LPG, gasoline, kerosine, aviation fuel, diesel, and heavy fuel oil (OGJ Online, Jan. 3, 2017).
To be built on modules mounted on skids and equipped with an unspecified reforming technology from Honeywell UOP LLC to produce reformate that will be blended to produce a premium motor spirit (PMS; gasoline) with an 89 research octane number clear (RONC), the modular refinery include ISBL and outside battery limits (OSBL) areas, according to Azikel Petroleum’s website.
The ISBL will consist of the following processing units:
- Crude distillation unit with debutanizer.
- Naphtha hydrotreater.
- Naphtha splitter.
- Catalytic reformer.
- Diesel hydrotreater.
- Gasoline stabilizer.
Specifically, the ISBL unit will be equipped to produce the following:
- PMS; 8,866 b/sd.
- Automotive gas oil (AGO); 1,090 b/sd.
- Kerosine-jet fuel; 1,452 b/sd.
- Off gas, mixed LPG; 200 b/sd.
Located along a 192,000-sq m stretch of former swampland that has now been cleared, destumped, filled, and reclaimed with 2.7 million cu m of sand, the OSBL—which is surrounded by a 4,120-m concrete perimeter fence—will include:
- A mix of 32 crude and refined product storage tanks of various sizes with a combined storage capacity of 70,930 cu m.
- Multiple-station loading bay gantries.
- Utilities for both the ISBL and OSBL areas, including installations for instrument-plant air, raw water treatment, steam generation, cooling water, nitrogen, fire and gas, flare, wastewater treatment, and power generation.
- A 3.1-km internal road network.
- Maintenance, operational, and administrative buildings.
- A vapor recovery unit.
- A fire station.
- Other unidentified, ancillary installations.
Bounded by the River Nun on the south, Obunagha community on the north, the Nigerian National Integrated Power Project’s (NIPP) Gbarain power plant on the northwest, and the proposed Azikel power plant on the west, the refinery will receive a reliable feedstock of Nigerian Bonny Light crude and condensate via pipeline directly from Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Gbarian-Ubie Shell gas gathering facility at the site’s eastern boundary, according to Azikel Petroleum.
While Dr. Eruani Azibapu Godbless, president of Azikel Group, said the project will be delivered on schedule and within budget, a definitive revised timeframe for the project’s commissioning has yet to be disclosed.
