REFINERY NEWS ROUNDUP: Progress on new plants in the Middle East

Progress has been reported on the start-up of two new plants in the Middle East - Jazan and Al-Zour - whose launch has been widely anticipated by the oil markets.

Meanwhile, refinery operations in the region have not been affected by some recent incidents.

Operations of Kuwait's Mina Abdullah refinery have not been affected by a fire at the docks in April, according to market sources. A fire broke out late on April 17 at docked boats in the Mina Abdullah region, Kuwait's Kuna news agency reported citing the Kuwait Fire Force. The fire affected a number of boats, and was contained after "intensive efforts", according to a report in the Qatar Tribune. Last year, there were several fire incidents at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery, after which the Kuwaiti government launched an investigation.

Meanwhile, Iran's Abadan refinery's "unit 80" is back in service following a small fire that started on April 28, state news agency IRNA reported April 29. "Following a fire in the tower of unit 80 yesterday morning, the damaged parts have been secured and repaired and the unit is back in service," HSE head of the plant Alireza Makvandi was quoted as saying. "With ascending temperature... the unit resumed working by reception of 75,000 barrels of feedstock in full capacity," he added.

Separately, six rockets struck the Khabat district in northern Iraq's Erbil province near one of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region's largest oil refineries May 1, local media reported, in the latest attack appearing to target energy infrastructure in the country. The Katyusha rockets resulted neither in casualties nor material damage, Kurdish news agency Rudaw said. They hit close to the Kawigosk refinery, run by Kurdish oil company Kar Group, and were in the same area that three rockets struck on April 6.

In other news, oil product stocks in the UAE port of Fujairah rebounded from a three-week low ahead of the Eid holiday as of May 2, according to data from the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone. Total inventories rose 798,000 barrels, or 5%, week on week to stand at 16.886 million barrels with light, middle and heavy products all showing gains, according to the data provided exclusively to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Stocks of heavy distillates and residues used as fuels for power generation and marine bunkers rose 1.8% to 11.268 million barrels and have built in five out of the last six weeks.

Pakistan, which typically buys high sulfur fuel oil from Fujairah, took in 30,056 mt of the fuel from Singapore for the first time in eight months, according to Enterprise Singapore data.

But market sources said Fujairah was seeing improved bunker fuel demand, and Saudi Arabia is likely to ramp up fuel oil purchases for electricity generation as the weather turns hotter toward summer, potentially increasing the pull for heavy distillates in Fujairah.

Fuel oil exports out of Fujairah to the US may also rise, with sanctions hitting supplies out of Russia.

NEW AND ONGOING MAINTENANCE

UPGRADES

LAUNCHES

New and ongoing maintenance

New and revised entries

** Work on the steam boilers at Syria's Homs refinery is 90% complete, according to the refinery. Recently, the country's oil minister Bassam Toumeh inspected the refinery to check progress on maintenance contracts. He also inspected the gas filling unit and maintenance of steam turbine for power generation at the refinery. The refinery currently is carrying out staggered maintenance.

Existing entries

** Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi Petroleum Corp. is not likely to shut for a planned turnaround in 2022, after a fire and subsequent maintenance work ended late 2021, a source close to the company said.

** Maintenance at Bapco's Sitra refinery has been pushed back to the second half of 2022 due to the impact of COVID-19 on logistical timelines, according to sources familiar with the matter. "Sitra is fully functioning now, but schedules have changed due to COVID-19. They were originally planned for Q1 and Q2 before 2020, but they have been pushed to later in Q3 and Q4," a company source said. The refinery will conduct maintenance unit by unit throughout 2022 so as to avoid a full shutdown but in the second half, the refinery will undergo a major shutdown expected to last as long as four weeks.

** Maintenance at the steam boilers at Syria's Homs refinery is 90% complete, according to the refinery's statement. Recently, the country's oil minister Bassam Toumeh inspected the refinery to check progress on maintenance contracts. He also inspected gas filling unit and maintenance of steam turbine for power generation at the refinery. The refinery currently is carrying out staggered maintenance.

Upgrades

New and revised entries

** A new structure will be added to Iran's 25,000 b/d Kermanshah refinery to triple its capacity with a $930 million investment, Farhad Kaviani, the refinery's managing director, was quoted as saying by NIORDC's website May 2022. "A 50,000 b/d plant is due to be built next to the current one to this end...and the existing plant will continue its production. The primary studies have been carried out and the new refinery will go on stream in three years," Kaviani said. The new refinery will produce more gasoline, including Euro 5 specification gasoline, and less fuel oil (2%) compared to the existing facility, he said. Kermanshah refinery also has a $80 million project on the agenda to reduce sulfur in the mazut or heavy, low-quality fuel oil it is producing, Kaviani added.

** Iran's Isfahan refinery is expecting a gasoil purification unit, currently under construction, to become operational in September 2022.

The gasoil purification along with a desulfurization unit are part of the upgrade of the 81,000 b/d residue hydrotreating unit, or RHU, which will help the refinery produce 100,000 b/d Euro 5 spec diesel. The desulfurization project has progressed 37%, the refinery's managing director Mohsen Ghadiri said. "Once this project is operational, Isfahan refinery will be the country's second refinery to produce bunker fuel," Ghadiri said. The RHU project is due to go on stream by March 2025. The Isfahan refinery has also drafted plans to build tank farms at southern ports at the Persian Gulf in order to facilitate exports of oil products.

** A third catalytic cracker unit, or RFCC, will be built at Iran's Bandar Abbas refinery. It will enable the refinery to produce 60,000 b/d of Euro 5 gasoline and 350,000 mt/yr of propylene. Separately, the project to upgrade the quality of heavy products at Iran's Bandar Abbas was 40% complete. Several units were foreseen in this project including solvent de-asphalting, DAO purification, delayed coker, calcined coker, as well as downstream units such as for purification of naphtha and gasoil. Other units will produce and purify propylene, LPG, tar, hydrogen. Fuel oil production in the plant's basket will be cut below 10% and its sulfur will reach up to 1%.

Existing entries

** Iran's Abadan will stabilize rather than increase capacity at 360,000 b/d after the launch of the first phase of its upgrade, which includes a new CDU, in addition to the operational 150,000 b/d CDU. The first phase units will come online during the current calendar year which began March 21. The 210,000 b/d distillation unit at Iran's Abadan refinery has an 86% physical progress. It is due to go on stream by September 23 and expected to be fully operational by late March 2023. In the first part of its Phase 2 upgrade, apart from a CDU/VDU, Abadan will also build hydrogen production units and hydrocracker. In the second part of Phase 2 it will build hydrogen treatment and gasoline production units, including CCR and isomerization, as well as naphtha, gasoil and kerosene hydrotreaters. As a result, it will be able to produce Euro 5 spec products.

** Iranian Persian Gulf Star mulls further expansion. The condensate refinery eyes to add 90,000 b/d to the current nameplate refining capacity, Mohammadali Dadvar, managing director of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery was quoted as saying by local media. "The plant's initial design envisaged 360,000 b/d of gas condensates.

Right now, with implementation of an expansion project, the capacity has reached 450,000 b/d. We can raise this to 540,000 b/d in the future," Dadvar said.

** Iran plans to build a 150,000 b/d refinery to produce base petrochemicals along with other products in the Persian Gulf's Lavan island. Lavan will have a $20 million solvent production unit, and a $50 million new distillation unit. The two units would start construction within three months, the managing director of the Lavan oil refinery, Mohammadali Akhbari, said. The new refinery will be located next to an existing plant at the facility and will be built with private sector investment.

** Iraq's government decided North Refineries Co. should upgrade Haditha refinery and work directly with Honeywell, according a statement posted on state-run Iraqi News Agency. The contract will be a fast FEED one, the statement added. The government plans to build two units of total capacity of 20,000 b/d at the site, which will raise the capacity of the plant to around 35,000 b/d. International companies will be approached to bid for building an additional 35,000 b/d at the refinery, which will raise its overall capacity to 70,000 b/d.

** Bahrain is planning a 2024 startup for an upgraded and expanded Sitra refinery that will allow its sole processing facility to handle new crudes, including heavier grades. The startup of the $7 billion upgrade and expansion of Sitra has been pushed back to 2024 due to labor shortage resulting from COVID-19-related delays, Mark Thomas, the CEO of state-owned energy company Nogaholding, said in an interview. The expansion will increase Sitra's processing capacity to about 370,000-380,000 b/d from 270,000-280,000 b/d.

** Three consortia, including seven major international companies, have submitted bids for the expansion of Jordan's Zarqa refinery. The capacity will be raised from 100,000 b/d to 120,000 b/d, while the project is also aimed at improving the quality of oil products by reducing the output of heavy fuel oil which currently constitutes 20% of the refinery production, by converting it into light products.

Jordan Petroleum Refinery Co. has awarded a contract to US engineering company KBR for the design of a new residue hydro-processing unit as part of its expansion of the Zarqa refinery.

** Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. is working on a crude flexibility project, or CFP, at its Ruwais refinery. Upon completion in 2022, the CFP will allow ADNOC to process up to 420,000 b/d "of heavier and sourer grades of crude oil" at the refinery.

** Iran's Imam Khomeini, also known as Arak oil refinery, signed a Eur290 million technological deal with the Research Institute of Petroleum in July 2021, in a bid to produce 90,000 mt of needle coke on an annual basis, upon launching a coker unit.

The move will help Iran with supply of the sanctioned material of needle petroleum coke. Sulfur content of the calcined needle coke will be up to 0.55%.

"With preparation of tender documents and selection of the project's contractor by the first half of the next [Iranian] year (September 2022), it is predicted that the needle coke production at Imam Khomeini refinery becomes operational in March-May 2025," Gholamhossein Ramezanpour, managing director of the plant said. In addition to producing needle coke, the project will "cut down" the fuel oil production at the refinery from below 10% currently to zero. As a result of the upgrade, the refinery will produce Euro 4 and 5 gasoline and diesel. In 2019, the National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company and the state-owned Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation, or IMIDRO, signed an agreement for production of sponge and needle coke in Bandar Abbas and Arak refineries. Both refineries are building coke units.

** An approval by the Iraqi Council of Ministers is sought for a 17,000 b/d reformer and 31,000 b/d naphtha hydrotreater at the Basrah refinery, which will be part of the plan's current upgrade. The two units will be built by a consortium including the State Company For Oil Projects, and the Czech company UNIS, with duration expected at 43 months. A 70,000 b/d CDU unit at Basrah is near mechanical completion. Once online, the unit will raise the refinery's capacity to 280,000 b/d.

Preparations have also commenced to start work on the FCC unit by the Japanese Contractor JGC. The project comprises a fluid catalytic cracking unit (34,500 b/d); a vacuum distillation unit (55,000 b/d); and a diesel desulfurization unit (40,000 b/d). The project is scheduled to be completed in 2025. The project aims to convert the excess fuel oil produced by the existing refinery units -- 45% of the yield -- to lighter products.

** Ecomar Energy Solutions has agreed to expand its refinery and build new storage capacity at Fujairah. Refinery capacity will be increased to 62,000 b/d from 22,000 b/d currently, and inland storage capacity will be increased more than fivefold to 1 million cu m in the phase 3 expansion, which should be completed by the end of 2024. Ecomar's refinery will add an additional CDU, bringing the total to two CDUs.

** Iran will accelerate the expansion and upgrade of the Shiraz refinery. The expansion, which started in 2017, was due to be completed in three years but was slowed down due to sanctions. The first phase of the expansion and upgrade will involve upgrading the gasoline quality, with the second phase involving a diesel upgrade. An isomerization unit and diesel hydrotreater will be built under the project, estimated at $300 million. Shiraz has around 50,000 b/d current capacity and the expansion will add 26,000 b/d.

** Following a major upgrade project, Iran's Tabriz refinery expects to reduce its fuel oil production. The refinery currently produces 4 million l/d (1.416 million mt/year) of fuel oil, which is primarily used as a feedstock for tar. By about 2022, the refinery is expected to reduce fuel oil production from around 25% of product output to below 5%.

** A gas condensate project is under construction in Iran as part of eight planned 60,000 b/d condensate refineries around Siraf, Bushehr province.

** There is a program in Syria's Ministry of Oil for the Homs Refinery to reach the highest possible production capacity.

** Iraq plans to rehabilitate and develop the Baiji complex north of Baghdad, where three refineries were damaged during the war with the Islamic State group.

Currently, one refinery is operating at 70,000 b/d, a second 70,000 b/d unit and a third 140,000 b/d facility should become operational. The third refinery would take total capacity at the Baiji complex back to 280,000 b/d, making it again the largest facility in the country.

** Iraq's oil ministry announced plans to upgrade the country's 20,000 b/d Qayyarah refinery, with the aim of adding a second 70,000 b/d production unit that would take the total capacity of the plant to 90,000 b/d.

** Iraq has added another 10,000 b/d of refining capacity after completing the rehabilitation of a CDU at the Kasik refinery in the north of the country, the oil ministry said. Rehabilitation work continues at the refinery's other 10,000 b/d CDU.

** Saudi Arabia's Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Co., or Petro Rabigh, has awarded US-based Jacobs a contract to provide front-end engineering and design work, as well as project management consultancy, for a fuel oil upgrade project dubbed "Bottom of the Barrel." The refinery is in the process of launching the phase 2 expansion, which adds 15 chemical units in the Petro Rabigh complex.

** Saudi Aramco plans to complete a $2.5 billion clean fuels project at its Ras Tanura refinery. Work on the clean fuels project at Ras Tanura started in 2018.

** Saudi Aramco has awarded a contract to KBR to provide technology, license, basic engineering design and equipment for its solvent de-asphalting for the Riyadh refinery residue upgrading and clean fuels project.

** US engineering company CB&I has been awarded a $95 million contract for the expansion and modernization of Sasref.

Launches

New and revised entries

** The first part of Kuwait's new Al-Zour refinery is expected to be operational "within the next few weeks," Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company said on its twitter account in late April. KIPIC said efforts to operate the refinery are "proceeding in full swing." Al-Zour started test runs in 2020 and was initially expected to come online by the end of 2021, but this was then extended to June 2022. The refinery has six trains of the world's largest atmospheric residue desulfurization (ARDS) units.

Separately, engineering and technology company Technip Energies has been awarded a "significant contract" for project engineering and management by Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company, or KIPIC, for various potential projects at the Al-Zour complex, including the refinery, petrochemical complex, and LNG import facilities. The contract is for the duration of six years.

** Saudi Arabia's newly built full conversion Jazan Refinery Complex is expected to start production and exports of ULSD shortly, according to market sources. The company was not immediately available to comment. It said in December 2021 that the plant was in final commissioning and refining at half of its full capacity. The refinery had previously been expected to be commissioned at the end of 2019 and be ready for full operations in the second half of 2020. Located in the far south of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea, about 60 km from the Yemeni border, the refinery has been a target of several missile attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen, though Saudi Arabian officials have said they intercepted all attempted strikes.

** The National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company said in April 2022 that after completion of studies in a Syrian refinery the project is close to the financing stage, the state-owned news agency IRNA reported. In October 2017, oil ministry news service Shana reported that Syria has signed a $2.6 billion contract with Iran, Venezuela and Malaysia to build a 140,000 b/d refinery near the city of Homs in Al-Farkas. Venezuela owns 33% of the refinery's revenue, Iran and Malaysia take 26% and Syria will have the remaining 15%, it said.

Existing entries

** Iran will start construction of a new 300,000 b/d refinery Shahid Soleimani.

The refinery, whose construction was due to begin in April 2022, will be located next to the Persian Gulf Star refinery. The refinery, estimated to cost $11.5 billion, will provide petrochemical and related feedstock and will be Iran's most advanced technologically, according to a report in the state-owned Iran newspaper. It will produce gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil and its petrochemical side will have propylene, ethylene and paraxylene production. Soleimani refinery will be fed with heavy crude oil. The project is due to be completed in around five years. The first phase is scheduled for completion between October 2026 and March 2027 and the second phase a year later. Separately, upgrades at Bandar Abbas, Tehran and Tabriz will be completed in the next 2-3 years.

** Iran plans to build a new plant in the southwestern, oil-rich province Khuzestan, according to Farhad Ahmadi, managing director of the state-run National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Co. "Design and construction of the Khuzestan oil refinery that will cost $4.5 billion will start in the next Iranian year (2022-23)," he said.

** Oman's Duqm refinery is still scheduled to open in 2023. The Special Economic Zone of Duqm is the site of several energy infrastructure projects under development and construction, including a refinery, crude storage facility and hydrogen project. The refinery is expected to come online in the first quarter of 2023, the head of project management at the facility told state-run Oman News Agency on Oct. 30, 2021. Construction of the refinery is 87% complete, Yousuf Al-Jahdhami told the agency. The refinery, which will cost more than $8 billion, has faced numerous delays since construction started in 2018.

** Iran has launched the first phase of a 70,000 b/d extra heavy crude plant in the Persian Gulf's Qeshm island, state television reported Jan. 14. "This is the first extra heavy oil refinery in the country that in its first phase has a refining capacity at 35,000 b/d of extra heavy oil," oil minister Javad Owji said after the plant was launched by President Ebrahim Raisi. The primary product of the plant, built by Pars Behin Qeshm Oil Refining Co., is bitumen. Naphtha, kerosene and gasoil are added to the basket during the distillation process. Pars Behin is a subsidiary of the private Pasargad Energy Development Co. The refinery is fed by the offshore Soroush and Nowruz oil fields, said Saeed Mohammad, who is secretary of the Free Zones High Council. "The second phase of Qesham extra heavy oil refinery will be run by another 35,000 b/d. Its physical progress has reached 20%," Mohammad said.

** China's CNCEC will build a refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Iraq, the oil ministry in Baghdad said. The 300,000 b/d refinery will be built at the port of Fao on the Gulf, the ministry said in a statement. It didn't disclose when the refinery will start or what will it cost. The refinery will be offered under the Build Operate Transfer, or Build Own Operate Transfer investment model, S&P Global reported previously. The petrochemical facility could be integrated into the refinery at a later stage.

** Brooge Energy Ltd. said in July 2021 that it had signed an agreement to sublease land to Blue Ocean Energy FZE over 20 years, on which it will construct a 25,000 b/d modular refinery in the UAE's Fujairah. Blue Ocean Energy will be responsible for building the refinery and financing the cost of construction, while Brooge will oversee operating the refinery and earning revenue from tolling fees on a take-or-pay basis. It will be focused on production of VLSFO. Brooge Energy has said previously it expects its 25,000 b/d refinery planned in the UAE's Fujairah to be developed, constructed, installed, and operating by Q1 2022.

** The Iraqi oil minister has awarded a consortium to build a new 100,000 b/d refinery in the Dhi Qar province. The original project envisaged a 300,000 b/d plant, but this was later reduced to 150,000 b/d and subsequently to 100,000 b/d. The refinery is expected to be built with integrated production units such as a fluid catalytic cracking unit and a catalytic reforming unit, and will be able to produce refined oil products that meet Euro 5 grade specifications, as per the statement.

** Iraq expects to gradually commission the greenfield Karbala refinery in Q1 2022. The refinery will include 35 units and 44 storage tanks. Plans are also underway to build a new 70,000 b/d refinery in Qayara, near the Qayara oil field in the north. Besides these projects, the oil ministry is seeking to encourage investors to finance "investment refineries," in several locations, including Zubair and Fao in the south. Iraq is in talks with Eni to build a 300,000 b/d refinery near the Zubair oil field operated by the Italian company in the southern part of the country.

The first phase of the project includes commissioning 150,000 b/d by 2025.

** Iraq aims to build a new refinery in Basrah province.

** Iraq's oil ministry is seeking investors for a 100,000 b/d refinery in Wasit province, a 70,000 b/d refinery in Samawa province and a 70,000 b/d refinery in Kirkuk. It has also added a 70,000 b/d site at Diwaniya, in Qadisiya province, south of Baghdad, a new 150,000 b/d project to be built in the west Anbar province. Work has yet to start on the 150,000 b/d Missan refinery.

** Angola's state-owned oil company, Sonangol, is working with Iraq's ministry of oil to build a complex refinery in Mosul. The discussions between Sonangol and the ministry are for a refinery with a capacity of 100,000-150,000 b/d of complex products.

** Canada's Pacific Future Energy has been awarded a contract to build a 150,000 b/d refinery outside the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya.

** Canada Business Holdings' 300,000 b/d ultra low sulfur fuel oil refinery project at Duqm, Oman, will process residue from OQ and Kuwait Petroleum International's 230,000 b/d Duqm refinery project, CBH CEO Moses Solemon said. "The CBH refinery complements the Oman-Kuwait refinery. Therefore, we are in synergy and not in competition," Solemon said. The company is targeting the end of 2023 for the refinery to process its first batch of products. The plant will use technology that reduces sulfur emissions.

** Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya has started construction work on a 120,000 b/d plant to process gas condensate from the offshore South Pars gas field.

** Iran is aiming to start construction of the Anahita oil refinery in the western province of Kermanshah designed to process 150,000 b/d of crude oil.

** Kuwait may add a new refinery in the south of the country, which could add 130,000-160,000 b/d of capacity.