Page 12 - DMEA Week 32 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA
BAPCO awards contract to ART
MIDDLE EAST
STATE-OWNED Bahrain Petroleum Co. (BAPCO) has awarded a five-year full-cycle cat- alyst management (FCM) contract to Advanced Refining Technologies (ART) for work on the Sitrah refinery.
The $240mn contract, which has an option for a five-year renewal, was awarded as part of the BAPCO Modernisation Project (BMP), a programme designed to increase the refinery’s capacity from 267,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 380,000 bpd.
Under the deal, ART, a joint venture between W. R. Grace & Co. and Chevron, will provide its Resid Hydrocracking catalyst technology “for a wide variety of feedstocks to maximise bottom of the barrel upgrading”.
It will also provide FCM services for the recla- mation of metals from spent catalysts.
BAPCO’s Chairman and CEO Dr. Dawood Nassif said: “Our new hydrocracking unit will convert 78% of the vacuum residue feed into intermediate products, which will then be
further processed into high margin kerosene and diesel.” He added: “A key component is catalyst performance and management, and the unique agreement signed with ART, who will be respon- sible for the total supply chain of catalyst from cradle to cradle.”
Also this week, the BAPCO board of directors held a meeting to review progress on the BMP, then conducted a site visit to a wharf dedicated to the increased refining capacity.
In May, Bahrain’s Oil Minister Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said that the BMP should be completed within the next 18 months.
The $4.2bn main EPC contract on the $6bn project was awarded to a consortium of Lon- don-listed TechnipFMC, South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas, with completion initially envisioned in 2023.
Meanwhile, the oil minister spoke of ongoing talks with international companies for the devel- opment of a $2bn petrochemical plant that will be fed by naphtha from BAPCO.™
New Tema exec promises improved fortunes
AFRICA
THE new managing director of Ghana’s Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) this week said he is ready to tackle the issues that have nearly disabled the 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) facility.
Edward Boateng, a former diplomat and journalist spoke confidently about his ability to reinvigorate the refinery which has been almost completely out of operation because of financial issues that have dragged on for several years.
TOR has been plagued by issues since an explosion at its distillation unit (CDU) in early 2017 and only resumed operations in January following a six-month closure.
Outages have been experienced at the crude distillation and fluid catalytic cracking units, while only one of the CDU’s furnaces is currently operational, giving the 56-year-old facility an effective throughput capacity of 30,000 bpd.
However, in May S&P Global Platts quoted sources as saying that the refinery had depleted all of its feedstock with operations halted for maintenance and repair works to begin.
“The refinery is currently down. We exhausted the crude oil we had and we are yet to receive any new crude oil cargo,” the source said. “In the meantime, the maintenance outfit of the company is taking advantage of the situation to carryoutsomefewrepairworks.”
Frustrations have boiled over in recent weeks with local outlet Modern Ghana reporting that refinery staff had “recently locked up some
management staff ”.
However, Boateng moved to provide reassur-
ance, saying that the problems facing the refin- ery were purely financial, adding that he hopes to find a lasting solution to the problems, with the help of TOR staff. He said: “One of the things I always thank my parents for is that they taught us how to solve problems. We have to solve the problem at TOR and I will solve it.”™
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Week 32 12•August•2021