Gazprom Neft to add new hydrocracker at Moscow refinery
PJSC Gazprom Neft subsidiary JSC Gazpromneft-MNPZ has let a preliminary contract to DL E&C Company Ltd of South Korea and its subsidiary Daelim RUS LLC to deliver a suite of services on construction of a new hydrocracking plant to be built as part of the operator’s ongoing modernization and upgrade of its 12-million tonne/year Moscow refinery.
As part of the agreement, DL E&C will provide engineering design and procurement services, while Daelim RUS will supervise procurement and construction activities for the new unit, DL E&C said in a filing to the Korea Exchange on the 12th March.
The preliminary agreement, on the 11th March which will convert into a formal contract within 90 days, is valued at 327.1-billion won and will run for 42 months from the date of commencing work on the project, according to the service provider.
DL E&C – which parent company Daelim Industrial Company Ltd spun off on the 4th January 2021 by dividing out its construction business – disclosed no additional details regarding the proposed hydrocracking plant.
Moscow refinery modernisation
The new hydrocracking unit planned for the Moscow refinery follows Gazpromneft-MNPZ’s July 2020 commissioning of its 98-billion roubles Euro+ combined oil refining unit (CORU), an integral element of the manufacturing site’s second-phase modernization designed to improve the manufacturing site’s overall environmental performance as well as its yield of light-end, Euro 5-quality petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel, and aviation kerosine.
In its fourth-quarter 2020 and preliminary year-end 2020 earnings report released in February 2021, Gazprom Neft said overall modernisation works at the Moscow refinery had reached 80%, with full ramp-up of the Euro+ CORU in third-quarter 2020 increasing refining depth at the site to 85%.
The Euro+ CORU – which consists of a six-million tpy primary atmospheric-vacuum distillation unit; a one-million tpy gasoline reforming unit; a two-million tpy diesel (distillate) hydrotreating unit which includes an iso-dewaxing unit; a gas fractionation unit; and an amine regeneration unit also has enabled increased production of Euro 5-quality gasoline and diesel fuels, as well as helped further reduce the refinery’s operational impact on the environment, including a 7% slash in its energy consumption, according to a series of 2020-21 releases from Gazpromneft-MNPZ.
While neither Gazprom Neft nor Gazpromneft-MNPZ have revealed specific information regarding the planned grassroots hydrocracking plant, the project presumably comes as part of a third phase of the refinery’s modernisation programme which will focus on further improving environmental performance and deepening refining capabilities at the site, and on which Alexander Dyukov – Gazprom Neft’s chief executive officer and chairman of its management board – said in 2020 would require an investment of about 160 billion roubles.
Initiated in 2011 and scheduled for completion in 2025 at a final estimated cost of 350 billion roubles, the Moscow refinery’s modernisation programme has included various initiatives allowing the refinery to reduce its pre-modernisation environmental impacts by 50%, with anticipation of another 50% reduction in impacts to occur once all Phase 2 works are completed in 2021.
Source: Oil & Gas Journal