Essar Oil Ltd, a subsidiary of Essar Energy, on Monday successfully commissioned its amine regeneration unit (ARU), which is a part of the Phase-I expansion at its Vadinar Refinery.
The amine regeneration Unit (ARU) is a UOP-designed unit, with 8 MMTPA (million metric tonnes per annum) design capacity. The ARU at the Vadinar refinery is one of the largest such units in the world. The operational readiness of the ARU is essential to ensure smooth operations of the DHDT (Diesel Hydrotreater) and VGO-HT (Vacuum Gasoil Hydrotreater) units.
When completed, the Phase-I expansion will increase the Vadinar refinery’s capacity from 14 MMTPA (300,000 bpd) currently to 18 MMTPA (375,000 bpd) as well as increase its complexity from 6.1 to 11.8. The project is nearing completion and increased throughput of 18 MMTPA will commence by March 2012.
An optimisation project is also under execution at the refinery to further increase the capacity to 20 MMTPA (405,000 bpd) by September 2012. The expansion and enhancement projects will give the Vadinar refinery the capability to process nearly 87 per cent ultra-heavy crudes, which are lower cost than light crudes. In terms of product yield, the expanded Vadinar Refinery will have the flexibility to produce higher value products, including pet coke.
"After the commissioning of the isomerization unit last month, the refinery team is working towards ensuring the commissioning of all the remaining units that form a part of our Phase I expansion. The ARU commissioning is one more step in that direction and will be followed by all the balance expansion units being commissioned in the current quarter," said Lalit Gupta, MD & CEO-Essar Oil.