By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 4 -- Expansion of the Sohar refinery in Oman will include installation of a crude unit and hydrocracker (OGJ Online, Mar. 2, 2011).
The refinery, now with a capacity of 116,000 b/d, processes a mixture of Oman Export Blend crude and long resid delivered by pipeline from the 106,000 b/d Mina Al-Fahal refinery near Muscat 266 km to the southeast.
Oman Refineries & Petrochemical Co. let a contract to CB&I for front-end engineering and design and project management for a project at Sohar that will include a 71,500 b/d crude distillation unit, 96,800 b/d vacuum distillation unit, 66,400 hydrocracker, and 42,400 b/d deasphalting unit.
Other units will be for sulfur recovery, sour water stripping, amine regeneration, and isomerization.
Existing Sohar facilities in addition to the distillation tower include a 75,260 b/d resid fluid catalytic cracker and propylene recovery and indirect alkylation units.
Among goals of the project, according to the Oman Refineries web site, are production of 1.5 million tonnes/year of naphtha to feed the reformer at a nearby Aromatics Oman LLC complex and improvement of RFCC feed quality.
Sohar is a port on Oman’s northeast coast.
