Lukoil lets contracts for Kstovo refinery’s delayed coking complex

LLC Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez, a subsidiary of PJSC Lukoil, has let two contracts to Maire Tecnimont SPA, Milan, subsidiary KT-Kinetics Technology SPA (KT) to deliver five processing units for a deep conversion complex to be built at its 17 million-tonne/year Kstovo refinery in central Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region (OGJ Online, Nov. 2, 2017).

KT’s scope of work under the contracts includes engineering, procurement, and construction services for implementation of a diesel fuel hydrotreating unit, a hydrogen production unit, a pressure-swing adsorption unit, as well as a gas fractionation unit and a sulfur recovery unit, Maire Tecnimont said.

The units are intended to improve the Kstovo refinery’s complexity and technological capability by enabling the plant to increase production of higher-value products to help meet growing market demand for cleaner fuels, the service provider said.

Maire Tecnimont confirmed a combined value of the two EPC contracts—of which the $156-million EP portion was announced in November 2017—at $527 million (OGJ Online, Dec. 1, 2017).

Alongside other planned optimization projects at the site, the 2.1 million-tpy delayed coking complex will improve the refinery’s light product yield by more than 10% while reducing the fuel oil production by 2.7 million tpy.

The proposed delayed coking complex follows Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez’s startup of a second 2 million-tpy catalytic cracking complex for vacuum gas oil at the refinery in 2015 as part of Lukoil’s broader program to boost overall processing capacities and production qualities of its refining assets (OGJ Online, July 9, 2015).

The deep conversion complex is scheduled for startup in 2021.

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].