December 7, 2005 - "New Aromatics Complex in Japan"
Japan Energy Corporation will construct a new 580,000 metric ton per year (tpy) aromatics complex at the Kashima Oil Refinery based on Axens’ ParamaX™ technologies. The new complex is set to start-up in early 2008.
The ParamaX complex will be fed by 20,000 barrels per standard day (bpsd) of heavy naphtha from imported condensate and produce approximately 410,000 tpy of paraxylene and 170,000 tpy of benzene. The estimated investment cost for the total project, including a 60,000 bpsd condensate splitter is 70 billion Yen. The ParamaX technologies to be implemented in Kashima are:
• Naphtha hydrotreating – for feedstock purification • Aromizing™ – continuous catalyst regenerative (CCR) reforming for aromatics production from naphtha • Morphylane® – aromatics extractive distillation • Eluxyl® – High-purity paraxylene separation from mixed C8 aromatics • XyMax – C8 aromatics isomerization with ethylbenzene dealkylation • TransPlus – toluene and C9+ aromatics transalkylation to produce C8 aromatics.
Paraxylene is the principal feedstock in the polyester production chain. Polyester is used in the fiber and resin industries. Benzene is the starting block of a large set of polymeric materials such as nylon fibers, polystyrene for plastic packaging, polycarbonates for impact resistant glass substitutes and compact disks. The demand growth rates for paraxylene and benzene are expected to be sustained by the growth in Asian economics. ___________________
Aromizing, Eluxyl and ParamaX are trademarks of Axens; XyMax and TransPlus are proprietary process names for certain Exxon Mobil Corporation technologies; Morphylane is a trademark of Uhde GmbH.
Japan Energy Corporation is the 100% owned petroleum subsidiary of Nippon Mining Holding Inc., whose capital is 35 billion Yen. JEC’s total refining capacity is 395,200 bpsd, including 190,000 bpsd from Kashima Oil, a 70.7% owned by JEC.
