March 11, 2004 - "Ecopetrol, Colombia Awards Refinery Contract to Axens"
The Colombian energy company, Ecopetrol, has awarded Axens (Princeton, USA) a basic engineering and licensing contract to manage the upgrading project of the Barrancabermeja Industrial Complex to produce clean fuels in line with a 2003 government issued directive. Axens will implement its Prime-D, Prime-G+ and ancillary technologies for upgrading diesel and gasoline qualities to the new specifications and will sub-contract sulfur recovery (Prosernat, Paris, France), hydrogen production (Technip KTI, Rome, Italy) and associated engineering (Tipiel, Bogotá, Colombia). Ecopetrol expects to award the engineering, procurement and construction contract within the year and to have the new units in full operation by 2007.
The project will include the following key technologies: • 55,000 barrel per day (BPD) diesel hydrotreater (Prime-D) • 19,000 BPD FCC gasoline desulfurizer (Prime G+) • 55 metric ton per day (MTD) sulfur recovery unit (Claus SRU) – SRU extension • 139 MTD Claus tail gas treating (Clauspol-TGTU) – to treat all SRU effluents • 18 MMSCFD of 99.9% purity hydrogen plant, including a new methane steam reformer plus a separate PSA unit to recover H2 from existing stream • 2,100 MTD amine regenerator • 2,550 MTD sour water stripping facilities • Utility interconnection and off-site/storage tank facilities.
Ecopetrol Empresa Colombiana de Petróleos (Ecopetrol) 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.
