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Adnoc on track with Ruwais feedstock diversification

  • Mercados: Crude oil, Oil products, Petrochemicals
  • 17/08/20

Abu Dhabi's state-owned Adnoc has completed installing new processing facilities at its 817,000 b/d Ruwais refining complex in the past two months, putting it on course with plans to diversify the plant's crude feedstock that will allow it to export more of its flagship Murban crude.

Its successful installation of two new South Korean-built fractionators and 24 atmospheric residue desulfurizer reactors means its $3.5bn crude flexibility project (CFP) project is now 73pc complete, with much of the physical infrastructure in place. When concluded in the middle of 2022, Ruwais will be capable of processing up to 420,000 b/d of the Adnoc's heavy, sulphur-rich offshore Upper Zakum grade, which the firm sells at a discount to the light, sour Murban.

The move is part of Adnoc's plans to increase the value of its natural resources and squeeze the value from every barrel it produces. UAE output was 2.43mn b/d in July, according to Argus. Nearly 80pc of that is the higher-value Murban.

Adnoc has said that when the CFP is complete Ruwais will be able to process more than 50 crudes. A project to modify a single-point mooring (SPM), just off the coast of Ruwais, would allow Abu Dhabi to import crude for the first time by 2024.

Ruwais is the centrepiece of Adnoc's $45bn capital investment expansion plan, launched in 2018, to turn the once-small industrial town into the world's largest integrated refining and petrochemicals complex by 2025.

Abu Dhabi has 922,000 b/d of refining capacity. Ruwais has been the focus of Abu Dhabi's downstream development for nearly 40 years, with several expansions since its first phase was inaugurated in 1982. The most recent project, to double capacity at Ruwais, was completed in 2015.

Last year, Abu Dhabi scrapped plans to build a new 600,000 b/d refinery by 2025, opting instead to expand Ruwais with an additional 200,000 b/d of capacity by 2024, and then to open a 400,000 b/d greenfield refinery at the site in 2026 geared towards petrochemicals. The change in plans came after Italy's Eni and Austria's OMV were awarded 20pc and 15pc equity stakes in Adnoc Refining and established a trading joint venture known as Adnoc Global Trading to sell products from Ruwais.


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