17 September 2009

Global perspectives: Connecting refineries in Germany

By Cris Whetton

France's Technip won an engineering, procurement, and construction management contract by Shell for the first phase of its "Connect" project in Germany.

By connecting two existing refineries in Godorf and Wesseling, Shell will create the largest refinery in Germany, the Rheinland refinery. The first phase of the project will take place in the Wesseling refinery, and includes the modification of the desulphurization and hydrogen units, as well as the construction of new facilities. The units at Wesseling will work in the desulphurization of gasoil produced in Godorf. Through this major investment, Shell will enhance its production capacity of low sulphur gas oil. Technip’s operating center in Düsseldorf, Germany, will execute the contract, which will wrap up in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Meanwhile, the European Investment Bank will lend $588 million (€400 million) to a unit of Repsol YPF for the modernization of a refinery in northern Spain. The loan will help finance the construction and operation of a coker unit at the Muskiz refinery (Biscay province), which belongs to Repsol subsidiary Petronor.

The project consists of the construction and operation of a delayed coker unit and related treatment units at Petronor’s refinery in Muskiz. It should reduce low-value heavy fuel oils and convert them into higher value low-sulphur diesel, gasoline, propane, and butane in accordance with EU specifications. The resulting increased conversion capacity at the site will make it possible to process heavier and sourer crude, which are cheaper and more abundant than lighter and sweeter ones. The project does not include an increase in the refinery’s atmospheric crude distillation capacity.

Sweden’s Alfa Laval received a $16 million (SEK 110 million) order for compact heat exchangers from a major refinery in Russia. The Alfa Laval compact heat exchangers will preheat crude oil before it goes into the main distillation processes. This will help in recovering heat from several streams of the refinery. The Russian refinery will be able to reduce its energy consumption by 340 MW and carbon dioxide emissions by 850,000 metric tons annually by using the heat exchangers. The name of the Russian refinery was not immediately available.

Cris Whetton is InTech’s European correspondent.