Azikel selects EPC contractor for Nigerian modular refinery

March 17, 2021
Azikel Petroleum Ltd., Abuja, has let a contract to Chemie Tech to serve as engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for its previously announced 12,000-b/sd hydroskimming modular refinery in Obunagha-Gbarain, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Azikel Group subsidiary Azikel Petroleum Ltd., Abuja, has let a contract to UAE-based Chemie Tech LLC to serve as engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for its previously announced 12,000-b/sd hydroskimming modular refinery in Obunagha-Gbarain, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria (OGJ Online, July 14, 2020).

As part of the lump-sum turnkey (LSTK) EPC contract, Chemie-Tech’s scope of work involves—but is not limited to—overall single-point responsibility for all project management, residual process engineering, detailed engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation, construction, testing, precommissioning, commissioning, and performance-guarantee test run (PGTR) run activities for the refinery, the service provider said.

Award of the LSTK EPC contract follows Chemie Tech’s completion of front-end engineering design (FEED) of the refinery’s outside battery limits (OSBL) areas as well early works on the project, the contractor said.

Chemie Tech did not reveal a value or duration of the contract.

Project overview

Originally targeted for startup in 2018, the modular refinery’s inside battery limits (ISBL) will host 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, the modular refinery will be equipped with an unspecified catalytic 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 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, associated 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, the operator has yet to confirm a definitive revised timeframe for the project’s commissioning.