Important Investment in the Petromidia Hydrogen Plant
Rompetrol Rafinare, member company of the KMG International Group (Rompetrol), has renewed the Hydrogen Power Plant (HPP) in the Petromidia refinery, through an investment of almost 10 million dollars.
The project aimed at replacing all the subassemblies that make up the reformer furnace, the most important and most complex part consisting in changing the 114 vertical tubes that store the catalyst needed for the reforming reaction.
“The complexity of the project, which involved hundreds of separate works, will support us in maintaining a high degree of operation of the unit, an absolutely necessary facility for the entire refinery. We maintain our high standard, ensure the production capacity of hydrogen and align ourselves with the general operational plans, established in the Group strategy,” said Florian Daniel Pop, General Director of Rompetrol Rafinare.
Considering the severe parameters required by the reforming process to obtain hydrogen (over 800 degrees Celsius and over 30bar working pressure), hundreds of mechanical elements were installed and interconnected using a special welding technology, with millimetre precision.
According to the technical sheets, the service life of the subassemblies is 100,000 hours – about 12 years. Taking into account the commissioning of the facility in 2012, part of the investment package of more than 380 million dollars that aimed to expand the capacity of the Petromidia refinery, the change of the subassemblies that make up the reformer furnace in the HPP unit was mandatory, the implementation in the framework of the general turnaround of this year being the right time to retechnologize.
The project was executed by four subcontracting companies, which allocated almost 70 specialists, and the implementation was carried out under the supervision of Rominserv – the general contractor of the KMG International Group (Rompetrol), based on the requirements provided by Rompetrol Rafinare.
The HPP unit is the main supplier of hydrogen to the Petromidia refinery, and the product is obtained by steam reforming methane gas. The resulting hydrogen is then used, mainly, in the processes of extracting sulphur from the products, in order to support the production of fuels to Euro5 standards. The installation has a capacity of 40,000 cubic meters/hour, with a minimum purity of 99.99%.
Rompetrol Rafinare has allocated, in 2024, a total investment budget of over 140 million dollars. According to the company’s estimates, around 85 million dollars were allocated only to the main modernization and revamp projects of the Petromidia refinery facilities, implemented as part of the general turnaround.
The general turnaround has a cycle of 4 years and is a necessary and mandatory measure, through which large-scale projects aimed at the modernization, maintenance and recertification of the operational assets of the Petromidia refinery are executed.
Petromidia Refinery is the largest profile unit in Romania and one of the most important in the region, with a capacity of over 5 million tons of raw materials processed annually.
In 2024, the unit in Navodari aims to process almost 5 million tons of raw materials, the largest share being represented by Kazakh crude oil, unloaded for Petromidia at the only offshore terminal for petroleum products in Romania’s territorial waters, operated by Midia Marine Terminal.
The significant shareholders of Rompetrol Rafinare SA are KMG International (54.63% – directly and indirectly) and the Romanian State, through the Ministry of Energy (44.7%).
