Honeywell announced that Sonatrach, Algeria’s largest company, will use technologies from Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) to expand the Skikda Refinery on the eastern Mediterranean coast of Algeria. The new technologies will enable Sonatrach to meet growing domestic demand for high-octane gasoline and diesel fuel that meets Euro V standards for cleaner-burning fuels.
Honeywell will provide licensing, basic engineering design and other associated services for an 81,000 barrels-per-day UOP Unicracking unit and UOP/Foster Wheeler solvent deasphalting unit to produce ultra-low sulfur diesel. In addition, Honeywell will provide CCR Platforming and Penex isomerization units to convert 143,000 barrels per day of naphtha into cleaner-burning high-octane gasoline.
“These Honeywell technologies will enable Sonatrach to upgrade low-value feedstocks by efficiently converting them into Euro V diesel,” said John Gugel, Vice President and General Manager of Honeywell UOP’s Process Technology and Equipment business. “Sonatrach also will use an integrated Platforming and Penex process to produce high-octane gasoline without having to produce or import additives such as MTBE.”
The 24,100-barrels-per-day solvent deasphalting unit will produce deasphalted oil in addition to resin and pitch, which will be used to produce different grades of bitumen, the base material for asphalt and roofing materials.