An unprecedented boost in market activity has occurred recently in the continuous catalytic regenerative (CCR) reforming business for both gasoline and aromatics production.
During the four year period 2000-2003, Axens commissioned five new CCR reformers: Europe (2000), Asia (2001, 2002, and 2003), and South America (2003). Over the next four year period, Axens is scheduled to commission ten new units with a total capacity of nearly 300 000 barrels per day, and this number is likely to be even higher. Among the CCR units to be constructed, there are: 6 for the production of high octane gasoline (Octanizing™) and 4 for BTX aromatics production (Aromizing™) . Geographically, these new units will be in Asia (3), the Middle East (4), Africa (2) and South America (1).
“We have not experienced any real break in our gasoline technology activity over the last three years”, says Christian Dupraz, Axens’ Director of Marketing and Technology for gasoline and petrochemicals. “Between the demand in cat reforming with Octanizing, FCC gasoline desulfurization with Prime-G+ and the increased activity in our paraffin isomerization process with the ATIS-2L catalyst, that we co-developed with Akzo, we have been extremely busy.”
Not only has the market picked-up over the last 18 months, but Axens has accumulated much of the success. The impact of a technological improvements program implemented in the mid-1990s produced noteworthy results. A new CCR regenerator, RegenCTM, was launched several years ago and has been very well accepted by the market. Further improvements, in 2002 through capital expenditure reduction, led to RegenC2 which is having even better success. In addition, the new CCR catalyst series, containing high and low platinum contents, in both high and low density versions, has helped to more appropriately match customer demands.
