Bapco awards largest Catalyst Management agreement in its history to US-based ART

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Bahrain Petroleum Company announced awarding a multi-million US$ contract for residue hydrocracking unit services to US-based Advanced Refining Technologies (ART).

ART, a joint venture between Grace and Chevron, is a leading supplier of hydroprocessing catalysts.

 Under the five-year contract valued at around US$240 million, ART will provide full-cycle catalyst management (FCM) services for the new Bapco residue hydrocracking unit known as 1RHCU, through which Bapco aims to boost the processing capacity of Bahrain’s oil refinery from 267,000 barrels a day (b/d) to 380,000 b/d.

 ART will supply its Resid hydrocracking catalyst technology for a wide variety of feedstocks to maximise the bottom of the barrel upgrading.

The technology is the industry-leading catalyst for metals capacity and sediment control.

 In addition, ART will provide full-cycle catalyst management services for the reclamation of metals from spent catalysts. The signing took place on 11 August 2021 at Bapco premises in Awali.

Bapco Chairman and Chief Executive, senior management and representatives from Bapco, ART, and CLG were present.

Bapco’s Chairman and Chief Executive, Dr Dawood Nassif, highlighted the significance of the deal.

“Our new resid hydrocracking unit will convert 78% of the vacuum residue feed into intermediate products, which will then be further processed into high margin kerosene and diesel.

He added: “This agreement has taken over 18 months to develop and negotiate, and I thank all the parties involved in making this a success.”

 Jag Reddy, Managing Director of ART, said, “Bapco will benefit tremendously over the life of this agreement through maximum conversion, lower operating costs, reliability, and longer run lengths. Most importantly, Bapco will free up valuable time and resources.”

When fully operational in 2023, the new resid hydrocracking unit, known as 1RHCU, will be the main profit centre for the Bapco Refinery. 1RHCU utilises LC-FINING process technology licensed from Chevron Lummus Global (CLG), a joint venture between Chevron and Lummus Technology.

The unit is a two-train design with a processing capacity of 65,000 barrels per day.

 Bapco’s application of this state-of-theart technology will be the first within the Middle East.

Less than a dozen of these units exist globally, and the Bapco unit will be one of the largest examples.