Kuwait’s largest refinery plan adjustment

Source: China National Chemical News September 5, 2019

Honeywell recently announced that the Kuwait Petroleum Industry Corporation has awarded Honeywell UOP with a reconfiguration contract for the refining and petrochemical parts of its Azul refinery.

The comprehensive facility of the readjustment plan will increase the production of fuel and petrochemicals, and Honeywell UOP will be responsible for revising the configuration and capacity of the gasoline production facility of the refinery. In addition, Honeywell UOP will provide technical authorization, design services, key equipment and the most advanced catalysts and adsorbents to meet the production needs of clean fuels, para-xylene, propylene and other petrochemical products.

Jim Moshi, General Manager of Honeywell UOP Middle East, said: \"After the project is completed, it will become the largest integrated oil refining and petrochemical plant in Kuwait's history. In addition to aromatic hydrocarbons and propylene, it will also produce Euro V standard clean fuel, which will become The cornerstone of Kuwait’s Clean Fuel Initiative.\"

The gasoline production part of the refinery will include a world-scale 98,000 barrels per day (BPD) heavy oil catalytic cracking unit for the production of propylene, gasoline and petrochemical aromatics, and a set of UOP technology to produce low-sulfur gasoline SelectfiningTM device for mixing components. Two UOP Merox units will be used to process propane to produce propylene, and to process isobutane to produce clean fuel blending components. It also includes a 11,800 barrel/day Butamer unit for converting n-butane to isobutane. The petrochemicals section includes an aromatics unit that can produce 1.4 million tons of paraxylene per year. It will use the latest generation of LD Parex aromatics technology, including Sulfolane, Isomar and Tatoray process technologies. The CCR Platforming unit and naphtha hydroprocessing unit have been expanded to meet the needs of large-scale production of gasoline and aromatics plants.