Attock Refinery plans to add desulphurisation capacity

Pakistan’s Attock Refinery Ltd plans to establish a new 50,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) deep-conversion refinery. The company’s recently release annual report says that the refinery addition depends upon “sustainable enhanced supplies of local crude… and necessary support from the government side.” The expansion plan is part of an upgrade to meet Euro-V fuel specifications, and also envisages a continuous catalyst regeneration unit (CCRU), which will increase the volume of gasoline production and improve gasoline octane content while eliminating the use of octane-boosting additives and naphtha export. It will be coupled with a diesel hydrodesulphurisation unit to reduce diesel sulphur content to 10 ppm or below.

Attock says that it has already completed licensor front-end engineering design (FEED) studies which put the cost of the upgrade project at around $600 million. The contract for the project FEED and project management consultancy services was awarded to Italy’s Studi Technologie Progetti SpA, and is currently around 90% complete.