McDermott starts up largest ever CDAlky reactor in China
McDermott International announced on March 14 the successful commercialization and start-up of its single largest CDAlky® reactor to date at PetroChina’s refinery in Jilin, China. The 350,000-metric ton per annum (9,000 barrels per day) plant is one of four CDAlky projects awarded to the company by PetroChina and had an unusually fast schedule from design to operation, with start-up occurring just 17 months after initial design.
Lummus’ CDAlky technology provides a safe, clean and economical route to low sulphur, high octane alkylate blendstock used to fuel smaller, lighter and high compression transportation engines. One of the key features of the CDAlky technology is its scalability. Competing processes would require multiple reactors to achieve the same capacity, adding complexity and plot space in comparison with CDAlky.
“Lummus technology’s CDAlky is the most advanced alkylation process for the production of motor fuel alkylate,” said Daniel M. McCarthy, Executive Vice President of McDermott’s Lummus Technology business. “The CDAlky process provides a higher quality product with lower capital and operating expenditures, offering the best overall solution for the clean fuel production of alkylate.”
McDermott’s Lummus Technology is a leading licensor of proprietary petrochemicals, refining, gasification and gas processing technologies, and a supplier of proprietary catalysts and related engineering. With a heritage spanning more than 100 years, encompassing approximately 3,100 patents and patent applications, Lummus Technology provides one of the industry’s most diversified technology portfolios to the hydrocarbon processing sector.
About McDermott
McDermott is a premier, fully integrated provider of technology, engineering and construction solutions to the energy industry. For more than a century, customers have trusted McDermott to design and build end-to-end infrastructure and technology solutions to transport and transform oil and gas into the products the world needs today. Its proprietary technologies, integrated expertise and comprehensive solutions deliver certainty, innovation and added value to energy projects around the world. Customers rely on McDermott to deliver certainty to the most complex projects, from concept to commissioning. It is called the ‘One McDermott Way.’ Operating in over 54 countries, McDermott’s locally focused and globally-integrated resources include approximately 32,000 employees, a diversified fleet of specialty marine construction vessels and fabrication facilities around the world.
About PetroChina
In 2011, a group of major refining & chemicals projects were completed and put into operation, enabling the company’s primary crude oil processing capacity to be up to 155 million tons. The alternation and expansion of the refining project at Liaoyang Petrochemical were completed for operation, becoming the company’s 7th ten-million-ton-level refining base. The capacity upgrading of the refining project at Ningxia Petrochemical, and the upgrading of oil products quality at Karamay Petrochemical and Jinzhou Petrochemical were completed and became operational. In addition, the construction of the principal facilities of the refining and ethylene projects at Fushun Petrochemical, which have capacity of 10 million tons and 1 million tons respectively, were completed. The installations for integrated refining & chemicals project at Sichuan Petrochemical and ethylene alternation and expansion project at Daqing Petrochemical came to a closing. Despite of the difficulties in production organization for refining, the company balanced and optimized the allocation of crude oil resources as a whole, orderly arranged the inspection and maintenance of equipment, and timely adjusted and optimized the product structure with market oriented. As a result, the ratio of high-grade gasoline and efficient products rose to 96.7% and 30.5% respectively. For chemicals, with an eye for market demand, the company optimized the production scheme and increased the production of readily marketable products. Accordingly, the company produced 3.467 million tons of ethylene and developed the new products in 75 trademarks. Besides, PetroChina enhanced the full benchmarking with the advanced technologies at home and abroad. Among which, 20 key technical and economic indicators made historical record, and light products yield, ethylene yield and diene yield remained at the leading position in China.
