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Sulphur 423 Mar-Apr 2026

23 March 2026

Duqm Refinery looking at further expansion

OMAN

Duqm Refinery looking at further expansion

Following an increase in its processing capacity, Duqm Refinery is now looking at further expansion projects at the $9 billion refinery project located in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (SEZAD) on Oman’s southeast coast. The refinery, which now has an expanded capacity of 255,000 bbl/d, is run by OQ8, a joint venture between Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) and Oman’s OQ Group. Speaking to local media, CEO Abdulla Al Ajmi said that OQ8 has now begun front end engineering design on a reformer unit to upgrade naphtha into high-octane gasoline components such as reformate, a critical step in producing finished, specification-grade fuels. In addition to the proposed reformer unit, Duqm Refinery is also exploring opportunities to enhance value creation from its refining by-products, notably sulphur and coke.

Al Ajmi said: “Other opportunities include sulphur and coke, and we have an MoU with a cement plant in Duqm that plans to use our coke by 2028. We are always on the lookout for projects that help us extract value from our outputs and by-products and contribute to the industrial ecosystem.”

Duqm’s sulphur unit includes three IPCO SG20 drum granulation units, with two operating at any given time. The units have a design capacity of 800 t/d each, but are currently run at 450 t/d to meet the refinery’s daily production need of 900 t/d. This has been a major boost to Oman’s sulphur production, which elsewhere runs at around 240 t/d, recovered primarily from gas processing operations at Petroleum Development Oman facilities, including Jebel Khuff and Taysir.

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