Page 18 - EurOil Week 31

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil

Rompetrol boosts efficiency at

Petromidia refinery

ROMANIA ROMANIAN refiner Rompetrol has completed (KMG) has a 54.6% stake in Rompetrol
a $1.4mn project boosting efficiency at a delayed through its international subsidiary, while the
The refinery is coking unit (DCU) at the 100,000 barrel per day remaining interest is held by the Romanian
undegoing other (bpd) Petromidia refinery, it said on July 31. government.
upgrades financed by The work was completed during the plant’s KMG International (KMGI) said earlier
a Kazakh-Romanian recent turnaround and involved the installa- this year that the Kazakh-Romanian Energy
fund. tion of a new light gas oil recovery system at the Investment Fund (FIEKR) it helped set up had
DCU’s fractionation column. It will raise the approved two new investment projects at Petro-
refinery’s yield of heavy gas oil, increasing overall midia. The first $35mn one involves the con-
feedstock processing, and boost the recovery of struction and integration of a new dewaxing
light gas oil, the operator said. plant, enabling the refinery to produce more
“Our company has successfully implemented winter diesel, as well as jet fuel. It is scheduled
a project that supports plans and objectives to for completion in September 2022.
increase efficiency, reduce costs and optimise The second project, worth $8mn, will convert
operational flows,’ Rompetrol’s general manager, the refinery’s high-density polyethylene unit to
Felix Crudu Tesloveanu, explained. produce polypropylene (PP) instead, raising
It will bring the refinery up to the most mod- overall PP output from 90,000 to 120,000 tonnes
ern standards of oil processing, he said. per year (tpy). It is slated for finish in June 2021.
The DCU was commissioned in 1985 and FIEKR, which is also backed by the Roma-
underwent a $50mn modernisation project nian government, will fully finance the poly-
in 2013, reducing annual operational losses by mer project but will only cover 30% of the cost
$3mn and helping the refinery reduce its energy of the new dewaxing plant. The remainder will
consumption. be funded using local or international financial
Kazakhstan’s state-owned KazMunayGas sources, KMGI has said. ™

German oil refinery to host 30-MW

hydrogen electrolyser

GERMANY THE Heide oil refinery near Hamburg is due to will be provided by the developers, bringing total
host a 30-MW hydrogen electrolyser, companies project costs to €89mn.
Germany just adopted involved in the project said on August 3, with the The electrolyser will be the largest of its kind
a national hydrogen goal of reducing the plant’s carbon emissions. in Germany, which to date has only developed
strategy. Germany adopted a national hydrogen strat- up to 6 MW in size. It will be run on electricity
egy in June that sets aside nearly $8bn in support generated by nearby wind farms.
for carbon-free hydrogen production. Hydro- The Heide oil refinery, with a through-
gen has been hailed as a potential source of clean put capacity of 90,000 barrels per day (bpd),
energy for areas of economies that are difficult is owned by industrial conglomerate Klesch.
to decarbonise. Other members of WESTKUESTE 100 include
The country’s goal is to develop 5,000 MW of France’s EDF, Swiss cement maker Holcim, Ger-
electrolyser capacity by 2030 to replace conven- man grid operator Open Grid Europe, Danish
tional and nuclear power generation. These elec- wind firm Orsted, Heide municipal authorities,
trolysers will produce so-called green hydrogen local utility Thuega and German industry group
from water, with the processed being powered Thyssenkrupp.
with wind and other renewable energy sources. The electrolyser will replace the fossil fuel-
The WESTKUESTE 100 group of develop- based hydrogen currently used by the refinery.
ers announced this week that they had secured A newly formed joint venture set up by EDF,
€30mn ($36mn) in state funding support to Orsted and Klesch will oversee construction.
build the Heide electrolyser. A further €59mn ™

P18 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 31 06•August•2020