Abu Dhabi: The $10 billion Ruwais refinery expansion of Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Company (Takreer) focused on meeting the petroleum product requirements of the local market is scheduled for completion by February-March 2014, a senior company official said yesterday.
Addressing delegates at the Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference 2013 in the capital, Ahmad Omar Abdullah, chief operating officer at Abu Dhabi Refining Company (Takreer) said the addition of 417,000 barrels per day at the mega grassroots refinery would double Takreer’s overall refining capacity when it goes onstream.
Takreer is a unit of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). The Ruwais refining Complex is located 240 kilometres west of Abu Dhabi city.
“The project progress achieved by February 2013 is 88 per cent. EPC-I CDU is 85 per cent complete, EPC-2 RFCC is 86 per cent complete and EPC-3 offsite and utlities are 89 per cent completed,” said Abdullah.
He said the new refinery would process Abu Dhabi’s Murban crude oil grade and it will increase Takreer’s gasoline production by an additional 2.7 million tons per day. As much as 1.1 million tons per annum of propylene production is expected. Ethylene will be recovered and used as a feedstock for olefin conversion as well.
The combined refining capacity at Takreer’s two refineries in Abu Dhabi is currently about 490,000 barrels per day. The expansion of its Ruwais facility will boost Takreer’s overall refining capacity to nearly 1 million barrels of refined products per day.
The refinery project is to be developed in eight packages, including crude distillation and sulphur recovery facilities, a residue fluidised catalytic cracker, offsites and utilities, storage tanks, infrastructure work, marine works, and two separate packages for the site preparation works.
In November 2010, the project was under execution. In March 2010, Takreer signed agreements worth $9.6 billion (Dh35.25 billion) with four Korean companies to expand its refining capacity at Ruwais by the end of 2013. The agreements were for engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPC) works for five main packages of the Ruwais refinery expansion project.
Agreements were signed with SK Engineering and Construction Company for the crude oil distillation and associated downstream units package; GS Engineering and Construction Corporation for the residue fluid catalytic cracking unit and associated refining units and marine facilities packages; Samsung Engineering Co. Ltd, for the offsite and utilities package; and Daewoo Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd for the tankage and associated interconnecting piping package.
Abdullah also said Takreer is in the process of studying and implementing a new series of investments. However, he didn’t elaborate.
