Tatneft installs new deisobutanizer column at Tatarstan integrated complex

PJSC Tatneft, Almetyevsk, Russia, has installed a new deisobutaziner column for a gas fractionation unit at the more than 10 million-tonnes/year refinery of subsidiary JSC Taneco’s multiphase integrated refining and petrochemical complex in Nizhnekamsk, 250 km from Tatarstan’s capital city of Kazan.

Installation of the 70.4 m-high deisobutanizer column—now the tallest Taneco’s complex—was started on May 31 and completed as of June 2, Tatneft said.

The new deisobutanizer column will be used to separate isobutane from depropanized fraction from an associated 350,000-tpy gas fractionation unit, which separates light hydrocarbons into close-cut fractions to produce propane-butane, stable gas naphtha, butane, and isobutane.

The isobutane will be transported to Tatneft subsidiary OOO Tolyattikauchuk’s petrochemical complex in Tolyatti, Samara Region, Russia, to be used as fresh feedstock, Tatneft said.

Installation of the deisobutanizer column follows the operator’s start of sales of RMD-80 ultralow-sulfur marine fuel—which complies with the International Marine Organization’s (IMO) new regulations requiring ships to use marine fuels with a sulfur content below 0.5%—and Euro 6-quality gasoline grades AI-92,  AI-95, AI-95, AI-98, AI-100 from Taneco’s refining complex last month, Tatneft said in releases on May 26 and May 28.

Production of IMO 2020-compliant marine fuel began after the refinery’s mid-April commissioning of a new 850,000-tpy heavy coking gas oil hydrotreating unit, which has an annual marine fuel production capacity of 750,000 tpy, Tatneft said.

Taneco also commissioned a new sulfolane plant in April to produce raw materials for production of high-octane gasoline components to enable increasing Euro 6 gasoline output at the site by 30,000 tpy, according to an Apr. 17 release from Tatneft. The sulfolane plant also has allowed the refinery to begin production of up to 45,000 tpy of benzene-toulene fraction for use as petrochemical feedstock at the complex.

As of April 17, unidentified construction and commissioning activities also were under way at the refinery’s middle distillate and delayed coking units, Tatneft said.

The recently commissioned units come as part of an ongoing program Tatarstan launched in 2005 to strengthen the republic’s refining industry, as well as in accordance with basic provisions of a quadripartite agreement on modernization of Russia’s 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 processing capacities at Russian Federation refineries (OGJ Online, July 6, 2016; June 1, 2016).

Tatneft’s modernization program—which aims to boost nameplate crude oil processing capacity at Nizhnekamsk to 14 million tpy—is scheduled to be fully completed in 2023 (OGJ Online, Jan. 29, 2018).