IOC lets contract for new unit at Barauni refinery

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) let a contract to a consortium of Maire Tecnimont SPA to provide engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPCC) services for a new unit to be installed as part of IOC’s project to increase crude oil processing capacity at its 6-million tonnes/year (tpy) Barauni refinery in Begusarai District, Bihar, in northeastern India (OGJ Online, June 14, 2021).

As part of the July 5 contract, Tecnimont SPA and Tecnimont Private Ltd. will deliver EPCC up to the performance guarantees test run for a 200,000-tpy grassroots polypropylene plant and associated logistics installations, Maire Tecnimont said.

Valued at $170-million, the lump-sum EPCC contract is scheduled to run 30 months from the award date to mechanical completion of the project, according to the service provider.

Officially approved in 2020, the 148.10-billion rupee Barauni refinery expansion will increase crude processing capacity by 3 million tpy to 9 million tpy as well as add downstream polymer units at the site as part of IOC’s strategy to help meet growing domestic demand for petroleum products in India (OGJ Online, Aug. 3, 2020).

Expansion overview

Alongside construction of a grassroots 9-million tpy atmospheric-vacuum distillation unit (AVU) to replace the refinery’s three existing AVUs and addition of the new 200,000-tpy polypropylene unit, the project also entails installation of the following major grassroots units:

• Two new sulfur recovery units, each with a capacity of 80 tonnes/day.
• A new 1.2-million tpy diesel hydrotreating unit,
• A new 304,000-tpy isomerization unit.
• A new 360,000-tpy NHDT unit designed to treat naphtha feed moving specifically to the isomerization unit.
• A new 1.2-million tpy diesel hydrotreating unit.
• A new 61,000-tpy hydrogen generation unit.
• A new 1-million tpy once-through hydrocracking unit.
• A new 562,000-tpy propylene recovery unit.
• A new 200,000-tpy polypropylene unit.
• A new 390,000-tpy LPG treatment unit.
• A new 880,000-tpy naphtha splitting unit.
• A new 500-tonnes/hr amine recovery unit.
• A new 220-tonnes/hr sour water stripping unit.
• A new 6,178-kg/hr flue gas amine treating unit (OGJ Online, Apr. 7, 2021).

The expansion project also will involve revamps and upgrades to increase capacity of current units at the refinery, including:

• Expanding the refinery’s existing 210,000-tpy naphtha hydrotreating (NHDT) and catalytic reforming combined capacity to 300,000 tpy.
• Expanding capacity of the existing 1.4-million tpy residue fluid catalytic cracking unit to 1.7 million tpy.
• Expanding capacity of the existing 500,000-tpy Coker B to 662,000 tpy (OGJ Online, Apr. 7, 2021).

The Barauni crude processing capacity expansion currently remains on schedule for commissioning by April 2023, IOC said in May.