Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) announced today that Farabi Petrochemicals Co. (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) will use Honeywell UOP technologies for a new complex in Yanbu to expand its production of biodegradable detergents. The construction of the new complex is expected to be completed in 2020.
As part of the contract, Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) will provide catalysts and adsorbents as well as licensing, basic engineering design and other associated services for the new complex. Honeywell UOP technologies include a Unionfining hydrotreating unit, a Molex unit to produce the linear alkylbenzene (LAB) feedstock necessary for making biodegradable detergents, a Pacol unit for dehydrogenation, a DeFine unit to improve product purity, and a Detal detergent alkylation unit.
When completed, the Yanbu complex will produce more than 120,000 metric tons (m.t.) per year of LAB and 246,000 m.t./yr of normal paraffins, in addition to de-aromatized specialty oils, asphalt, sulfonates, mining chemicals, process oils and lubes. As a feedstock, the complex will use diesel from the Saudi Aramco refinery and kerosene from the Saudi Aramco ExxonMobil refinery in Yanbu.
According to the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA), Saudi Arabia had 98.5 million m.t./yr of petrochemicals production capacity in 2016. It is the region’s second-largest industry within the manufacturing sector, creating more than 500,000 direct and indirect jobs and $108 billion worth of products as recently as 2015.
The demand for normal paraffins as the feedstock for LAB continues to increase worldwide. The Molex process provides the most economical route to produce normal paraffins from kerosene and diesel, while also producing a by-product return stream of Jet A-1 quality jet fuel. The process operates in the liquid phase and simulates a moving adsorbent bed in a fixed-bed system using a proprietary multi-port rotary valve.
Farabi Petrochemicals Co. is a 100% Saudi-owned closed joint stock company. It started its operations with its first integrated normal paraffin and LAB complex with Honeywell UOP technology in 2006, and doubled its LAB capacity through an expansion in 2012. Farabi also operates an LAB complex in Jubail, on the East Coast of Saudi Arabia. The company’s new complex in Yanbu will make Farabi one of the largest producers of normal paraffins and LAB in the world.