Tatneft commissions units at Tatarstan refinery

PJSC Tatneft, Almetyevsk, Russia, has commissioned a naphtha hydrotreater and isomerization unit at its unit at the 9 million-tpy refinery of subsidiary JSC Taneco’s multiphase integrated refining and petrochemical complex in Nizhnekamsk, 250 km from Tatarstan’s capital city of Kazan.

The 1.1 million-tpy naphtha hydrotreater and 420,000-tpy isomerization unit entered service on Jan. 25, Tatneft said.

Startup of the two secondary processing units form the first stage in implementation of a full-scale design for the complex’s production of 100% Euro 5-quality gasoline, with the new units respectively enabling output of high-octane gasoline blending components as well as feedstock for a catalytic reforming unit scheduled for commissioning at the site later this year, the operator said.

The recently commissioned units come as part of an ongoing program Tatarstan launched in 2005 to strengthen the republic’s refining industry, as well as in accordance with basic provisions of a quadripartite agreement on modernization of Russia’s processing industry between oil companies; the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation; the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision (Rostechnadzor); and the Federal Agency for Technical Regulating and Metrology (Rosstandart) to reequip and upgrade processing capacities at Russian Federation refineries (OGJ Online, June 1, 2016).

Requiring a total investment to date of 307 billion rubles from Tatneft and 24.7 billion rubles from Taneco as of yearend 2017, the modernization program—which is scheduled to be fully completed in 2023—also will include commissioning of kerosine and diesel hydrotreating units in 2018, as well as startup of a new crude unit, GDU-VDU-6 (also known as ELOU-AVT 6), Tatneft said.

Designed to boost nameplate crude oil processing capacity at Nizhnekamsk to 14 million tpy by 2020, GDU-VDU-6 also will enable the refinery to process half of all regional oil production into finished products for the Russian market.

Tatneft previously commissioned a 2 million-tpy delayed coking unit at the refinery, which allowed the manufacturing site to completely eliminate its yield of dark oil products, increase overall refining depth to 99.2%, and raise its yield of light oil products to 87% (OGJ Online, July 6, 2016).

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].