PJSC Lukoil subsidiary OOO Lukoil Volgogradneftepererabotka has commissioned a vacuum gas oil (VGO) deep-conversion hydrocracking complex at its Volgograd refinery in southern Russia as part of a program to boost overall capacities of the company’s refining assets (OGJ Online, Feb. 19, 2013).
Entered into commercial operation on May 31, the deep-processing complex includes a 3.5 million-tonne/year VGO hydrocracker, units for hydrogen production and sulfur recovery, as well as auxiliary installations, Lukoil said.
Completed in 3 years at a cost of $2.2 billion, the complex will increase the refinery’s annual output of the following products for primary distribution to markets in southern parts of Russia: Euro 5 diesel fuels by 1.8 million tpy, motor gasoline components by 600,000 tpy, and LPGs by 100,000 tpy.
Startup of the Volgograd deep-processing complex establishes Lukoil as the first Russian operator to fulfill its commitments under a July 2011 quadripartite agreement on modernization of Russia’s oil processing industry between oil companies; the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation; the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision (Rostechnadzor); and the Federal Agency for Technical Regulating and Metrology (Rosstandart) to reequip and upgrade oil processing capacities at the country’s refineries.
Addition of the complex at Volgograd follows Lukoil’s June 2015 commissioning of the 6 million-tpy AVT-1 crude distillation unit at the refinery (OGJ Online, June 25, 2015; Feb. 20, 2015), which has lifted crude oil processing capacity at the site to a current 15.7 million tpy from its previous 11 million-tpy capacity, Lukoil said in its latest annual report.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
