Foster Wheeler AGs Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded a contract by Thai Oil Public Co., Ltd. for the basic design engineering package and engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for the Emission Improvement and PSA-3 project at Thai Oils refinery at Sriracha in Thailand.
The projects objectives are to give the refinery greater flexibility in the crudes it can process, specifically to enable the refinery to process higher-sulfur crudes, to upgrade fuel oil to more valuable end products, and to meet new sulfur-oxide (SOx) emission regulations coming into force in Thailand.
Residue production will be reduced through the application of deep-cut vacuum technology, which helps mitigate the effects of heavier crude slates. In addition, new sour-gas-handling facilities will be installed, including a sulfur-recovery unit and a tail-gas treatment unit, and the hydrogen-production capacity will be expanded by the installation of a new pressure-swing adsorption unit. Foster Wheelers scope also includes a significant element of revamp work. The project is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2013.
The Shaw Group Inc.s Mumbai, India, office has completed service work for the addition of a Shaw proprietary ultra selective cracking (USC) furnace for GAIL (India) Ltd. in Pata, Uttar Pradesh, India. Shaw provided engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for the furnace project and worked approximately one million work hours without a lost-time incident.
Shaw has assumed full ownership and control of the operations of its Mumbai office, which previously operated as a 50/50 joint venture with an Indian partner. In December 2010, Shaw announced it will provide proprietary technology and basic engineering for a new 450,000-tpy ethylene plant for GAIL at the same site. Shaw will also provide support during detailed engineering, procurement and construction, and commissioning and startup of the plant.
PETRONAS plans to embark on a new integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex in Southern Johor, Malaysia. The new development, to be known as Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (RAPID), is still at the detailed feasibility study stage. It is estimated that it will cost about $20 billion and will comprise a crude oil refinery with a 300,000-bpd capacity, a naphtha cracker that will produce about 3 million tpy of ethylene, propylene, C4 and C5 olefins, and a petrochemicals and polymer complex that will produce differentiated and highly specialized chemicals.
Greater in scale and scope than that of PETRONAS Melaka, Kertih and Gebeng complexes combined, the proposed development is expected to turn Southern Johor into another major petroleum and petrochemical center in the region. The project is expected to be commissioned by the end of 2016.
A subsibiary in Foster Wheeler AGs Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract by Star Petroleum Refining Co., Ltd. (SPRC) for the residue fluidized catalytic cracking unit (RFCCU) revamp turnaround and inspection project at its refinery at Map Ta Phut in Thailand.
The projects objective is to revamp the RFCCU to improve onstream reliability together with environmental and performance improvements. Foster Wheeler will carry out the FEED for this major revamp, including licensor selection, and will also work with SPRC to evaluate the existing RFCCU maintenance and reliability philosophies with a view to identifying any changes that may be needed in the future to retain the continuous improvement of onstream performance. The FEED is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2012.
Davy Process Technology and Johnson Matthey Catalysts (JM Catalysts), both part of Johnson Matthey Plc, have entered into contracts with Liaoning Datang International Fuxin Coal to Gas Co. Ltd. for a plant to produce substitute natural gas (SNG) from coal. The scope of the project includes a technology license, basic engineering design, catalysts and support services for the methanation unit that converts synthesis gas to SNG.
The new plant will be located in XinQiu District, Fuxin City, Liaoning Province, China, and have a capacity of 4,000,000 Nm3/day of SNG. This will be the fourth major SNG project that Davy/JM Catalysts have licensed in China.
Shell Development (Australia) Pty. Ltd. has given notice to a Technip Samsung Consortium (TSC) to proceed with the construction of what is said to be the first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility in the world. TSC will provide engineering, procurement, construction and installation for the FLNG facility that Shell will deploy at its Prelude gas field off the northwest coast of Australia.
Moored far out at sea, some 200 km from the nearest land, the Prelude FLNG facility will produce gas from offshore fields and liquefy it onboard by cooling. The facilitys detailed design will be undertaken by TSC at Technips operating centers in Paris, France, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and it will be built at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Geoje, Korea.
Siemens Water Technologies will provide a system to treat wastewater at China Petroleum & Chemical Corps (Sinopec Corp.s) Anqing refinery, in Anhui Province, China. The complete wastewater -treatment solution will include a powdered activated carbon treatment (PACT) system, a Zimpro wet air regeneration (WAR) hydrothermal unit and a Hydro-Clear sand filtration system. The three-tier system will be used to treat salty and oily wastewater from refining and petrochemical production activities from existing and upgraded units. The wastewater needs to meet the Chinese specifications for surface discharge. The system will become operational in 2012.
Honeywell has been selected by North Refineries Co. (NRC) as the main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor to upgrade the automation systems at NRCs refinery in Baiji, Iraq. The multimillion-dollar contract for the upgrading of NRCs existing control system will improve the refinerys operational efficiencies, reliability and safety.
Honeywell solutions will be used, including the award-winning Experion Process Knowledge System and Safety Manager, fully automating the facility and replacing its 30-year-old single-loop instrument control system. In addition to improving safety and security at the plant, the new automation investment will allow NRC to maximize productivity, while offering full scalability to support future technology upgrades.
Honeywell Process Solutions technology will manage a wide range of processes, helping to optimize yield while reducing maintenance costs by up to 30%. Honeywell will also provide technical training to NRC employees to promote seamless migration from the plants existing systems.
Huntsman Corp. has signed a license agreement with Yantai Wanhua Polyurethanes Co., Ltd., for the production of propylene oxide (PO) and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a co-product of PO. Yantai Wanhua plans to leverage the license to build a worldscale PO/MTBE plant at its facility in Yantai, Shandong Province, China, with construction expected to commence later this year and beneficial production due in late 2013.
The technology of UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, has been selected for a new transportation-fuel refinery to be built in Iraq. The State Company for Oil Projects (SCOP), under the Ministry of Oil for Iraq, has selected Honeywells UOP to provide key technologies to process 300,000 bpd of domestic crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel at the new facility in Nassiriya, Iraq.
UOP will provide reforming, isomeri-zation, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and selective hydrotreating technologies. As part of the overall technology package, UOP will provide basic engineering, technology licenses, catalysts and specialty equipment for the new refinery. Design will begin in the second quarter of 2011.
The specific UOP technologies to be provided to SCOP include the Continuous Catalytic Regenerative (CCR) Platforming and Penex processes, that are used to produce high-octane gasoline, as well as the UOP FCC and Selectfining technologies, that enable high-yield production of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel and gasoline.
Honeywell has announced that Hindustan Petroleum Corp., Ltd. has implemented Honeywell Process Solutions Mobile Stations in its prestigious $200-million new fluid catalytic-cracking unit (FCCU) project at its Mumbai refinery. The Mobile Stations increase productivity and reduce operating costs of standard communication infrastructure by expediting the commissioning of different systems and subsystems.
Burckhardt Compression has been awarded two orders by SINOPEC Wuhan Co. to deliver a total of six Laby compressors for its petrochemical complex. Two compressors will be used for propylene compression; one as a recycle gas compressor (ST process) and one as an offgas compressor (JPP process). Delivery of those compressors will take place in Q1 2012 and, Q4 2011, respectively. In addition, four compressors will be used for ethylene liquefactiontwo for ethylene BOG compression within the recondensing cycle, and two for propane compression within the refrigeration cycle. Installation is scheduled to be after Q1 2012. The 800,000-tpy ethylene project is said to be the largest integration project in central China. HP