Axens has been awarded several contracts for the expansion of the Ecopetrol Cartagena, Colombia refinery. This project targets:

- increasing refinery capacity from 75,000 bpsd to 140,000 bpsd, while increasing residue conversion capacity

- improving motor fuels quality for the domestic and US and Caribbean export markets

- reducing refinery sulfur emissions.

Axens will supply the technologies for the following grassroots units:

- a CCR reformer (Octanizing™) with its associated pretreatment

- a cracked naphtha desulfurization unit (Prime-G+™)

- distillate hydrotreating facilities (Prime-D™)

- a thermal cracker in combination with the existing Axens visbreaker to increase atmospheric residue conversion

- sulfur recovery facilities consisting of Claus and Clauspol Tail Gas Treatment units in association with Prosernat.

Ecopetrol

Ecopetrol (Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos) is a state-owned company involved in the entire oil chain from exploration, production, transport, refining to hydrocarbon commercialization. The company has two major refineries in Barrancabermeja and in Cartagena with capacities of 230,000 and 75,000 bpsd respectively, and two smaller refineries in Orito and Tibu.

Prosernat

Prosernat, specialized process technology and equipment supplier to the oil and gas industry, is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP) since October 2001. Prosernat offers a full range of processing units for phase separation, natural gas dehydration and sweetening, NGL extraction and sulphur removal. In particular Prosernat offers IFP gas treatment processes and TotalFinaElf amine processes.