PetroChina unit lets contract for refining-chemical integration project

PetroChina Guangdong Petrochemical Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp.’s PetroChina Co. Ltd., has let a contract to Honeywell UOP LLC to provide technology licensing for multiple units as part of a refining-chemical integration project under way at its 400,000-b/d heavy crude oil processing and petrochemical site in the Jieyang Nandahai Petrochemical Industrial Zone of China’s Guangdong province.

Honeywell UOP will provide a range of technology licenses, engineering design, key equipment, and state-of-the-art catalysts and adsorbents, operator training, technical services for start-up and continuing operation at the site.

As part of the contract, Honeywell UOP will supply a 74,300-b/d hydrocracking unit based on its proprietary Unicracking technology, which converts heavy vacuum gas oil into the raw materials for motor fuels and petrochemicals.

The project also will include two Honeywell UOP CCR Platforming units, each with a capacity of 60,250 b/d, to produce fuels, aromatics, and hydrogen essential for other processes in the plant.

Additionally, the plant will have a 52,200-b/d Light Desorbent Parex aromatics complex to produce high-purity paraxylene, the primary component of many plastic resins, films, and fibers. This complex will be the largest single-train paraxylene unit in the world, Honeywell UOP said.

The aromatics block also will include Honeywell UOP’s proprietary Sulfolane, Isomar, and Tatoray processes, as well as a UOP olefin-removal process unit to ensure maximum performance of the Parex process.

Honeywell UOP’s suite of technologies will enable PetroChina Guangdong to produce aromatics on a large scale because of its ability to integrate refining operations with a full aromatics complex, said Bryan Glover, vice-president and general manager for Honeywell UOP’s petrochemicals and refining technologies business.

A value of the contract was not disclosed.

Most recently, PetroChina Guangdong let a contract to W.R. Grace & Co. to provide technology licensing for a grassroots 500,000-tonne/year, single-line polypropylene unit scheduled for start-up in 2023 as part of the refining-chemical integration project (OGJ Online, Aug. 21, 2019).