ExxonMobil lets contract for NOx-reducing technology at Baytown refining complex

ExxonMobil Corp. has let a contract to ClearSign Technologies Corp. to provide its proprietary nitrogen oxide (NOx)-reduction technology at its 561,000-b/d integrated refining and petrochemical complex in Baytown, Tex.

As part of the contract, ClearSign will fabricate and install a multiburner process heater and burners equipped with its ClearSign Core NOx-reduction technology at the Baytown refinery as part of a final step in validating the technology’s effectiveness at improving energy, operational efficiency, and safety while simultaneously reducing NOx emissions, the service provider said.

The Baytown refinery installation order follows ExxonMobil’s previous order with ClearSign for early engineering and installation planning regarding a trial installation of ClearSign Core process burners at one of ExxonMobil’s US Gulf Coast refineries in 2019 following testing of the technology that involved evaluation of its application over a broad range of typical conditions—including variations in fuel heating values, turndown, and excess air—at ClearSign’s research and development site in Seattle, Wash., according to an Oct. 18, 2019, release from ClearSign.

"We are delighted to have received this order and to have advanced to this stage with ExxonMobil," said Jim Deller, ClearSign’s chief executive officer. “This order is the final step in demonstrating our technology with a supermajor at its refinery [and] results from the dedicated work of both our team and the research-and-engineering team at ExxonMobil.”

ClearSign disclosed neither a value of the order nor a timeframe for the technology’s implementation at the Baytown complex.

Retrofittable for crude heaters, vacuum heaters, hot-oil and heat-medium heaters, regeneration gas heaters, reactor-feed heaters, reboiler heaters, reformers, and delayed cokers, ClearSign Core process burner technology has been implemented as part of a retrofit installation of five ClearSign Plug & Play burners on a process heater in a California refinery to demonstrate the technology as a best available control technology (BACT) candidate for the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the refiner, according to Jan. 31, 2020, and Feb. 18, 2019, releases from ClearSign.

Based on preliminary estimates, if successful, ClearSign said it expects the California refinery implementation to reduce the refinery’s current NOx emissions by more than 15 tonnes without the use of catalysts, chemicals, utility consumption, or other inefficient requirements of established technologies.

ClearSign’s NOx-reduction technologies also have previously been installed to effectively achieve lower emissions and help improve operational efficiency at other US refineries (OGJ Online, Apr. 1, 2019; Mar. 6, 2017; Oct. 1, 2015).