OMV AG, Vienna, has commissioned a new unit for production of high-purity isobutene at subsidiary OMV Deutschland GMBH’s 3.8-million tonnes/year Burghausen refinery on the German-Austrian border in Bavaria, Germany (OGJ Online, July 15, 2019).
Equipped with a nameplate high-purity isobutene production capacity of 60,000-tpy, the new ISO C4 unit—which was integrated into the refinery’s existing metathesis plant responsible for energy-efficient manufacturing of propylene for the plastics industry—is the first global application of an OMV-BASF SE jointly developed novel technology for direct production of isobutene achieving up to 99.9% purity, OMV said on Mar. 22.
Using a heat-integration approach, up to 80% of heating energy required for the new energy-efficient plant is met by thermal discharge—or waste heat—from an existing associated installation, reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the site by 20,000 tpy, according to the operator.
In addition to codeveloping ISO C4 technology, BASF also supplied the catalyst and reaction system to fulfill all process requirements for the new unit, which produces high-quality isobutene without needing chemical conversion, OMV said.
As a result of ISO C4 unit’s enhanced energy efficiency and contribution to CO2 reduction, Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Environment—as part of its environmental innovation program to meet the country’s goals under the Paris Climate Change Agreement—funded €2.8 million of the project’s overall €64-million cost.
Isobutene produced by the unit is used to manufacture glues, grease, and other chemicals such as antioxidants, as well as for production of vitamin C, according to OMV.
The operator already has completed first deliveries of isobutene from the ISO C4 unit, which officially started up in late 2020, said Wolfram Krenn, senior vice-president of OMV’s European refining and petrochemicals assets.
“[The new ISO C4 unit] marks another step in implementing our chemicals strategy and safeguards the Burghausen site’s long-term future,” Krenn added.
Earlier in the year, OMV announced a separate €40-million to increase ethylene and propylene production capacities by about 50,000 tpy at the Burghausen refinery by third-quarter 2022 to increase feedstock for the neighboring Bavarian Chemical Triangle as part of the operator’s same strategy to realign its downstream operations for a petrochemicals-based future (OGJ Online, Jan. 21, 2021).
OMV said the downstream realignment aims to further strengthen the competitive position of its European refining assets to reflect the region’s increasing shift in demand for high-value products.
By 2025, OMV plans to invest up to €1 billion in three regional refineries—including the Burghausen refinery, as well as the 9.6-million tpy refinery in Schwechat, Austria, and 4.5-million tpy Petrobrazi refinery in the southeast region of Romania, near Ploiesti City—with more than 50% of this amount dedicated to petrochemical developments at the sites.
