Brazil’s Abreu e Lima refinery nears start-up
Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) said construction projects at its Abreu e Lima oil refinery at the port of Suape, near Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state, are nearly completed.
By the end of September, overall physical construction activities had reached just over 90% completion, Petrobras said.
Construction on the first 115,000-b/d phase of the refinery, which is to be commissioned by yearend, is now 95% complete, the company said.
Upon completion and commissioning of the second phase of construction, which is scheduled for 2015, the Abreu e Lima refinery will process 230,000 b/d (OGJ Online, Dec. 19, 2013).
Construction on the refinery, in which Petrobras was to hold a 60% stake alongside Venezuela's state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), who was to hold the remaining 40%, began in 2007 but faced repeated delays in order to negotiate better prices for some of the refinery’s systems (OGJ Online, Apr. 16, 2010).
Petrobras took full control of the project in late October 2013 following a series of delays by PDVSA to fund its share of the project (OGJ Online, July 29, 2011).
According to information made available on Petrobras’ web site, the fully commissioned Abreu e Lima refinery will include two units each for the following processes: atmospheric distillation, delayed coking, diesel hydrotreating, naphtha hydrotreating, hydrogen generation, and emissions abatement.
