Feb 27 2008
Uhde won against international competition two major contracts from the Bulgarian company LUKOIL Neftochim Bourgas AD, part of the Russian petroleum group LUKOIL, to engineer and supply clean-fuels plants for diesel and gasoline desulphurisation for its refinery located in Burgas on the Black Sea. The refining plants for the production of low-sulphur fuels have respective annual capacities of 1.6 million tonnes of diesel and 1.1 million tonnes of gasoline, and are scheduled to come on-stream in 2009. Together, the two contracts are worth in total some €100 million to Uhde.
Uhde's scope of supplies and services comprises the detail engineering, supply of equipment, construction support, commissioning supervision and training of the operating personnel.
The gasoline desulphurisation plant will be based on an AXENS process and a Haldor Topsoe process will be used for the production of low-sulphur diesel. With a sulphur content of less than 10ppm (parts per million), future production will comply with the EU fuel directive in force since 2005. This thus marks the switch to low-sulphur fuels of one of the biggest refining companies in Bulgaria, which joined the European Union on January 1, 2007.
"Innovative refining plants for the production of lower-emission fuels make an important contribution to environmental relief. In the past seven years Uhde has successfully engineered and supplied clean fuels plants with a total capacity of more than 33 million tonnes of gasoline and diesel fuels for renowned companies in the petroleum industry. This clearly underlines our competence in the field of refining technology;" said Helmut Knauthe, Uhde Executive Board member responsible for the refining technologies division, on the occasion of the contract signing ceremony.