Kuwait’s new Al-Zour refinery enters commercial operation

Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC) subsidiary Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co. (KIPIC) has officially commissioned the first phase of its long-planned, grassroots 615,000-b/d Al-Zour integrated refining and petrochemical complex in southern Kuwait, about 90 km south of Kuwait City (Fig. 1).

Following a series of delays since beginning construction in 2015, the refinery entered commercial operation in early November 2022 after startup of the complex’s associated LNG import terminal earlier in the year.

Al-Zour refinery is the cornerstone of Kuwait’s recently completed Environmental Fuel Project (EFP; formerly Clean Fuels Project) to upgrade and expand overall capacity of its refineries to produce clean-burning fuels conforming to Euro 5 standards. Its commissioning comes as part of KPC’s broader downstream program under its 2030 strategy to ensure a stable supply of clean fuels produced from Kuwaiti crude to its domestic consumer and industrial markets, as well as to enhance growth of the country’s refining and manufacturing sectors on a global scale.

In addition to presenting an overview of the Al-Zour refinery, its known technologies, and KIPIC’s plan for future petrochemicals production at the site, this article briefly discusses the complex’s associated LNG import terminal.

Al-Zour overview

First approved in 2011 but without engineering contracts awarded until 2015, the Al-Zour refining project was planned from inception to replace Kuwait’s outdated and now-shuttered 200,000-b/d Shuaiba refinery under the EFP. In addition to building the new refinery, EFP included a program to upgrade, expand, and transform Kuwait National Petroleum Corp.’s formerly 270,000-b/d Mina Abdullah and 466,000-b/d Mina Al Ahmadi refineries into an integrated 800,000 b/d merchant refining complex (OGJ Online, Jan. 6, 2020).

Covering a total project area of about 16 sq km, the KIPIC-operated Al-Zour complex consists of the 615,000-b/d refinery—now the world’s largest—future petrochemical production installations, and the already operating LNG Import Permanent Facilities Project.

Built adjacent to an artificial island for liquid-products storage with capacity of 5.6 million bbl, used to maintain strategic fuel stocks for different seasons and needs, the refinery will also eventually include a pier about 3 km offshore to accommodate exports of sulfur solid products via ships with a maximum payload of up to 60,000 tonnes (Fig. 2). The complex additionally hosts an 88-reservoir depleted field with combined crude storage capacity of 15 million bbl.

The overall refinery includes a mix of units and process technologies from multiple global licensors, and while definitive capacities and units have yet to be revealed, initial contract awards indicate the complex includes the following:

• 3 crude distillation units, each with a processing capacity of 205,000 b/d.
• 3 atmospheric residue desulfurization units, each with a processing capacity of 110,000 b/d.
• 3 diesel hydrotreating units, each with a processing capacity of 62,000 b/d.
• 2 18,200-b/d naphtha hyrdrotreating units.
• 2 kerosine hydrotreating units, each with a processing capacity of 53,000 b/d.
• An 8,500-b/d saturated gas unit.
• A heavy oil cooling unit.

KIPIC in 2018 awarded a contract to DuPont Clean Technologies to supply its proprietary technology licensing and design for a 9,100-b/sd STRATCO alkylation unit as well as a 70-tonne/day MECS advanced sulfuric acid regeneration (SAR) unit, both of which will enable the refinery to fulfill its targets for desulfurization and reduced emissions. The STRATCO alkylation unit was to feature Dupont’s Contactor XP2 technology in the STRATCO Contactor reactors, a patented reactor enhancement that maximizes use of the tube-bundle heat transfer area to ensure high-quality alkylate product from methyl tertiary butyl ether raffinate feedstock.

In October 2022, MOO said the refinery also would include unidentified process technologies from Chevron Lummus Global, Shell PLC’s Shell Global Solutions, Topsøe AS, and Fluor Ltd.

Petrochemicals’ future

Alongside refining operations, a critical portion of the Al-Zour project will involve implementation of petrochemical production capacity at the complex as part of KIPIC’s proposed Petrochemical Refinery Integration Al-Zour Project (PRIZe), which is designed to upgrade fuel products from the refinery to high-demand bulk petrochemical products, including 2.761 million tonnes/year (tpy) of aromatics and polypropylene, as well as 1.7 million tpy of gasoline (OGJ Online, Nov. 14, 2019).

Intended to maximize value of Kuwait’s hydrocarbon products and increase gasoline supplies to the domestic market, the PRIZe project will, upon completion, increase Kuwait’s polypropylene and aromatics production by 1000% and 200%, respectively, from current levels, KIPIC said.

While no definitive timeline has been revealed for this second phase of the Al-Zour complex, MOO confirmed in June 2022 that front-end engineering and design (FEED) for PRIZe has been completed.

KIPIC previously awarded a contract to McDermott International Inc. to deliver basic engineering, technology licensing, and catalyst for an integrated low-pressure recovery (LPR) and olefins conversion technology (OCT) unit at the complex, which the service provider said would add a gasoline block, an aromatics block, OCT unit, polypropylene units, as well as associated utility and offsite installations to the existing refinery site.

In July 2019, KIPIC contracted Honeywell UOP LLC to revise the configuration and capacity of the refinery’s original gasoline production installations, as well as supply technology licenses, design services, key equipment, and catalysts and adsorbents to produce clean-burning fuels, paraxylene, propylene, and other petrochemicals as part of PRIZe (OGJ Online, July 26, 2019).

To accommodate PRIZe, the refinery’s gasoline section was reconfigured to include:

• A 98,000-b/d RFCC complex for production of propylene, gasoline, and petrochemical aromatics.
• A UOP Selectfining unit to produce low-sulfur gasoline blending components.
• Two UOP Merox units to treat propane for propylene production and isobutane to make clean-fuel blending components.
• An 11,800-b/d Butamer unit to convert normal butane to isobutane.

The petrochemicals section will consist of an aromatics complex capable of producing 1.4 million tpy of paraxylene using the latest generation LD Parex aromatics technology, including the Sulfolane, Isomar, and Tatoray processes.

The CCR Platforming unit and naphtha hydrotreater also was expanded from its initial design to meet the needs of the larger gasoline and aromatics complexes.

Honeywell UOP also provided an Oleflex propane dehydrogenation unit equipped to produce 660,000 tpy of polymer-grade propylene for the project.