Downstream investment programme will see the company’s refining capacity increase by more than 65% by 2025
ADNOC Refining, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), has announced it has successfully completed the commissioning of a specialised coker unit, as part of its Carbon Black and Coker Project.
With this, ADNOC will extract the maximum value from ‘bottom-of-the-barrel’ heavy oils and slurry, as it delivers on its aggressive Downstream strategy.
ADNOC’s Carbon Black & Coker Project incorporates a coker, known in the oil and gas industry as a ‘delayed coker’ that will allow ADNOC Refining to recover highly specialised and valuable grades of carbon black and calcined coke.
Increasing the flexibility of ADNOC’s refining assets to stretch the value of every barrel of oil – and produce additional feed-stocks and additives for the petrochemical industry – is a key pillar of ADNOC’s Downstream expansion strategy.
Colossal investment
ADNOC’s massive Downstream investment program will see the company’s refining capacity increase by more than 65%, or 600,000 bpd, by 2025, through the addition of a third refinery, creating a total capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day (mbpd).
The new refinery will significantly increase the capability, flexibility and output of Abu Dhabi’s refining operations by adding to the range of crudes that can be processed. ADNOC also plans to build one of the world’s largest mixed feed crackers, which will enable it to produce additional feed-stocks and additives for the petrochemicals industry.
“At the heart of our Downstream strategy is an AED 165 bn (US$ 45 bn) investment, over the next five years, that will create the world’s largest integrated refining and petrochemicals hub in Ruwais, where ADNOC will convert 20% of its crude to chemicals, tripling petrochemical production capacity to 14.4 million tons per year, by 2025,” commented Abdulaziz Al Hajri, Director of ADNOC’s Downstream Directorate.
