PetroChina lets contract for Jinzhou, Jinxi refineries

PetroChina Co. Ltd.—the publicly listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC)—has let a contract to Chevron Lummus Global LLC (CLG)—a partnership of Chevron USA Inc. and Lummus Technology LLC—to license technology for atmospheric residuum desulfurization (RDS) units at subsidiaries Jinzhou Petrochemical Co.’s 130,500-b/d refinery in Guta District, Jinzhou City, and Jinxi Petrochemical Co.’s 130,500-b/d refinery in Huludao City, both in China’s province of Liaoning.

As part of the contract, CLG will supply its proprietary ISOMIX-e reactor internals for the refineries’ RDS units which, alongside allowing the PetroChina subsidiaries to maximize use of catalysts in their RDS reactors due to uniform process distribution and better product yield structure, also will enable safer operations with improved reactor temperature management to increase catalyst life and reduce turnaround times, the service provider said.

The contract comes as part of PetroChina’s project to install locally designed, identical RDS units—equipped with CLG’s internals in their reactors—at the two refineries, CLG told OGJ via e-mail on Oct. 30.

Use of the ISOMIX-e reactor internals will allow the refineries to improve product yields and achieve longer run times per catalyst fill.

Further details regarding the project—including a value of the contract or timeframe for its implementation—were not disclosed.