Saudi Aramco and Total SA have awarded a contract to Axens, Paris, to design a 32,000 b/d vacuum gas oil fluid catalytic cracker and other units for the planned 400,000 b/d refinery in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Aramco and Total recently confirmed plans to construct the refinery under a joint venture company, whereby Aramco will supply Arabian heavy crude and both companies will share marketing responsibilities. Axens will also produce an aromatics complex with a capacity of 700,000 tonnes/year of paraxylene and 143,000 tonnes/year of benzene. The refinery will start operations in 2012. Axens said the technology suite comprises a 68,000 b/d naphtha hydrotreater and continuous catalytic regeneration reformer to produce gasoline blend stock and mixed xylenes. The FCC unit is designed to produce more than 10 weight percent propylene. The refining and petrochemical complex is scheduled to start-up in 2012 Among the units that are being designed by Axens and its Alliance partners are a 32,000 bpsd vacuum gas oil fluid catalytic cracker (VGO FCC) and a ParamaX Aromatics Complex producing 700,000 metric tons per year (tpy) of paraxylene and 143,000 tpy of benzene An Axens licensed Iso-5 unit, which isomerizes linear pentenes to isoamylenes, has been put on stream at the Sasol Synthetic Fuels plant in Secunda, South Africa. Ecopetrol, Colombia awards Axens refinery contract. The Colombian energy company, Ecopetrol, has awarded Axens a basic engineering and licensing contract to manage the upgrading project of the Barrancabermeja Industrial Complex to produce clean fuels The FCC unit, designed to produce in excess of 10 weight percent propylene, is one of the latest from the successful 25 year FCC Alliance between Axens, Shaw, IFP and Total. The association has led to nearly 40 licenses and more than 100 revamps of various licensors units. The Jubail unit will include impact feed injectors, RS2 SM riser termination device and KFBE structured stripper packing. The ParamaX Technology Suite comprises a 68,000 bpsd naphtha hydrotreater and Aromizing Continuous Catalytic Regeneration (CCR) Reformer to produce gasoline blend stock and mixed xylenes. The xylenes are then submitted to Morphylane extractive distillation; high purity paraxylene is separated in the Eluxyl unit; and the paraxylene-depleted xylenes fraction is isomerised in the XyMax EB-dealkylating xylenes isomerisation unit.
