Craig Bender
Dangote Refinery Honeywell
UOP LLC, a division of Honeywell International Inc. announced that it has won a contract from Dangote Oil Refinery Company Ltd. for critical equipment, technology licensing and design services for a world-scale integrated refinery and petrochemical plant. When completed, the integrated complex in Lekki, near the capital of Lagos in Nigeria, will be the largest single-train refinery in the world.
Included in the agreement is proprietary specialist equipment required for UOP LLC’s licensed RFCC, Unicracking, CCR Platforming, Penex and Butamer processes.
The proprietary specialist equipment includes catalyst regeneration and dryer regeneration control systems, high-performance column trays, and heat exchanger tubes. The packaged equipment includes a modular CCR unit, catalyst coolers, a Third-Stage Separator System for the RFCC unit—which upgrades heavy oil—and two pressure swing adsorption (PSA) units to purify hydrogen.
“Nigeria has the second-largest proven oil reserves in Africa—more than 37 billion barrels—but currently imports most of its refined products because it has limited domestic refining capacity,” said Mike Millard, vice president and general manager of UOP LLC’s Process Technology & Equipment business. “This new refinery will help Nigeria meet its own growing demand for fuels and petrochemicals while raising the profitability of the nation’s crude oil.”
The Lekki facility will be the largest single-train refinery in the world producing Euro-V quality gasoline and diesel, as well as jet fuel meeting international aviation specifications along with world-scale quantities of polypropylene, a primary component used in plastics and packaging. The plant’s RFCC unit will be the largest in the world.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, Nigeria in 2015 produced 2.3 MMbpd of petroleum and other liquids, about 2 MM of which was exported. That same year, Nigeria relied on imports of refined fuels to meet more than 70% of its domestic needs.
