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PROCESSING — Quick Takes
Kentucky's Somerset refinery changes hands
Continental Refining Co., Somerset, Ky., said it has purchased the inactive Somerset refinery and plans to resume processing crude by early summer 2012.
The company said it will reactivate the 5,500 b/d plant on 93 acres from its current warm idle status. Longer term, it plans to install a hydrotreater to reduce sulfur content of its diesel products by 2014.
"A proven turnaround management team will work to remedy past mismanagement while maximizing the significant discount to market value that helped to make this purchase compelling," Continental Refining said in promising to retain all 40 current job positions.
The company said the site has 107,000 bbl of storage capacity for crude oil and refined products and 15 tanker transports. Somerset Refinery Inc. formerly operated the plant.
Energy Information Administration data show that 7,200 b/d of crude oil is produced within 100 miles of the plant plus 45,000 b/d in neighboring oil producing states. Continental Refining said the plant will be capable of receiving crude oil by truck, rail, pipeline, and barge.
Continental Refinery CEO Demetrios Haseotos said, "We provide a dramatic decrease in transportation costs along with favorable crude rates and faster payments to producers. At the same time we are keeping and adding 40 jobs in Somerset plus spending $10 million in upgrades over the next 3 years."
Encana to sell Cutbank Ridge gas plants
Encana Corp. agreed to sell two natural gas processing plants and associated pipelines in the Cutbank Ridge area of western Canada to Veresen Inc., Calgary, for $920 billion (Can.).
For Encana, the deal ends a 2011 divestiture program in a strategy to focus on oil and gas production in the US and Canada (OGJ Online, Nov. 3, 2011).
Veresen, a partner in the Alliance dense-phase gas pipeline between Canada and US Midwest and related gas plants, will acquire gas processing plants with combined capacity of 516 MMcfd in Hythe, Alta., and Steeprock, BC, and 370 km of gathering pipeline.
The deal includes a long-term gathering and processing fee agreement covering Encana's Cutbank Ridge gas production.
Among other deals announced or closed this year, Encana has sold its Fort Lupton gas plant in Colorado, other midstream assets in the Piceance basin area of Colorado, the Cabin ngas plant in British Columbia, and producing properties in North Texas.
Essar commissions Vadinar isomerization unit
Essar Oil Ltd. has commissioned a large C5-C6 isomerization unit at its 300,000-b/d Vadinar refinery under expansion and upgrade in Gujarat, India (OGJ Online, Oct. 24, 2011).
The unit, part of an expansion that will push the refinery's crude capacity to 375,000 b/d, has a capacity of 700 million tonnes/year. It achieved naphtha feed cut 32 days after the introduction of hydrogen.
The unit uses the Penex-DIH process licensed by UOP LLC. It's the first Vadinar expansion unit to be fully commissioned.
The refinery is scheduled to be operating at the expanded capacity in the first quarter of 2012. Optimization will further boost capacity to 405,000 b/d by September 2012, Essar says.
Contract let for Uzbek gas-to-liquids plant
Uzbekistan GTL LLC has extended an existing services contract of Technip for front-end engineering design of a gas-to-liquids plant 40 km south of Qarshi in Uzbekistan.
This plant will be based on Sasol's GTL technology and be able to produce up to 1.4 million tonnes/year, a capacity similar to the Oryx GTL plant in Qatar, also implemented by Technip. The Uzbekistan plant will have the following product slate: GTL diesel, kerosene, naphtha, and LPG.
This award follows the successful execution by Technip of the first-phase contract related to the detailed feasibility study (OGJ, Mar. 15, 2010, Newsletter). The FEED activities will be executed by Technip's operating center in Rome with the support of the group's center in Kuala Lumpur.
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