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Ahmadi refinery of largest, most modern in world at capacity of 466 bpd

KUWAIT, June 6 (KUNA) -- Ahmadi oil refinery is currently considered one of the largest and most modern refineries in the world at a capacity of 466,000 barrel per day (bpd), Assad Al-Saad, Kuwait National Petroleum Company ( KNPC ) Vice Chairman and Deputy Managning Director for Al-Ahmadi port refinery said Monday.

Al-Saad said, during a tour made by journalists at Al-Ahmadi refinery today, that it currently contains 29 new units, most important of which are crude oil distillation units, fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCU), desulphurization units from the residue of the atmospheric distillation tower, vacuum rerun unit, and sulphur recovery unit.

He added that Al-Ahmadi port oil refinery started operations in 1949 with a capacity that did not exceed 25,000 (bpd) in order to cover the needs of domsetic market including gasoline, diesel fuel, and Kerocene, then it was expanded between 1958 and 1963 in what made its oil capacity rise to 190,000 (bpd), then 250,000 (bpd) respectively.

Further, he said that the modernization project of Al-Ahmadi refinery aimed at providing both domestic and global markets with low-sulphur oil derivatives along with reducing reliance on natural gas as a fuel for power plants across the country in what offers low-cost, and eco-efficient fuel of more stable source.

As for the new expansion project, Al-Saad asserted that it is based on a comprehensive future market perspective of oil derivatives with the aim of achieving the highest possible profitability, and securing a stable market of the products refined at the KNPC three refineries alongside increasing the percentage of the rate of light and middle distillates in the distillation process, and reducing the rate of fuel oil to a minimum in what brings a higher revenue from the oil crude distillation process.

Regarding the oil distillation units at the refinery, Al-Saad said that the total capacity of the new two units is 320,000 barrel per day, noting that they receive crude oil from Burgan and Al-Ratawi fields, then separating derivatives in the distillation tower into a wide group of products like natural gas, natfa, kerocene, heavy gas oil, and residue.

He also said that the modernization project of FCCU aimed at ratcheting up the units' capacity from 30,000 (bpd) to 48,000 (bpd) in order to produce bigger amounts of gasoline mixture, and to supply the MAFP units with required quantities of liquefied petroleum gas.

Finally, concerning the Eocene ore refinery unit, he said that it is one of the most important units within the refinery as it works toward distillating the heavy eocene ore into a group of oil derivatives that can be marketed directly or processed at another units, noting that the the capacity of the Eocene ore refining unit was 10,000 (pbd), though it remarkably soared to 24,000 (pbd).