New technology is helping producers squeeze more from bottom of the barrel stocks, says Tim Challand, president of technology at KBR.
When it comes to engineering companies winning big in the local downstream industry, KBR stands out due to the variety of services it provides. This includes its EPC services, but crucially, also in the provision of cutting edge technologies for refineries, petrochemical and fertiliser plants.
Its technology division provides innovative solutions to a wide range of downstream industries. “We have six segments that we offer to the market,” Tim Challand, president of technology at KBR tells Refining and Petrochemicals Middle East.
“We have the refining segment which is dealing with heavy oil upgrading, and also have olefins technologies which include ethylene and propylene technology,” explains Challand.
The company also offers coal gasification technology and many other technologies used in the downstream sector. “Our gasification technology is not used here in the region, but we use it elsewhere in the world,” says Challand. “We also have chemicals offerings like aniline, phenol and acetone technology, which we started selling here in the Middle East recently,” Challand explains.
In a market characterised by a high level of competition between the major players, KBR provide its clients cutting edge technologies with a high level of specification. “If we just pick one example of our technology, such as in our offering for the refining sector, we are specialised in bottom of the barrel upgrading,” says Challand.
“We focus primarily on very heavy crude oil which is characterised by high sulfur content, the type of crude we find here in the region mainly in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region,” says Challand. The company’s bottom-of-the-barrel capabilities include residue upgrading, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and hydroprocessing.
CBI Lummus, Linde, Stone & Webster and Technip are the main provider of technology of ethylene crackers, in addition to KBR.
“There are five major ethylene technology providers, and we are one of them. KBR’s advantage is we have the short residence time cracking furnaces, which provide higher yields certainly in ethylene and propylene, which leads to better operating margins for the end-user,” explains Challand.
The ethylene technology provided by KBR has some key characteristics which differentiate the company from its competitors.
“If you look at our pyrolysis, or ethylene cracking technology, we are the only one among the major technology providers who are aligned with a major producer, Exxon Mobil, which allows us to incorporate features developed in and lessons learned from real operating plants to improve operability and reliability,” Challand notes.
“While the thermal efficiency of our technology is about the same as others, because our design results in higher yield compared to our competitors there is an economic advantage,” explains Challand.
And for customers who want to boost propylene production, KBR offers a unique catalytic olefins technology – delivered in partnership with SK Global Chemicals called the Advanced Catalytic Olefins (ACO) process.
The company is also among the major providers of technology for fertilizer production mainly for ammonia. It is also involved in the development of operations management systems.
This portfolio strength and wide range of offerings has helped the company to be well positioned in different projects across the downstream industry, whether in refining, petrochemical or fertilisers. Right now the company provides technologies to many clients in the Middle East, and has been involved in world-scale projects.
“Currently we are involved in various projects across the region,” says Challand. “We have licensed our phenol technology for the Petro Rabigh 2 project in Saudi Arabia. For that project We are also executing the basic engineering,” he adds.
KBR is also involved in some of the region’s key fertilizer projects. “We provide engineering, procurement and supply of propriety equipment for Al Jubail Fertilizer Company (Al-bayrouni), and other companies like Safco. We are also involved in many other projects across the Middle East and North Africa. “In North Africa, we have just finished an ammonia plant in Egypt.
Also, and for a number of years, we did work in Algeria on a significant projects on the technology side,” explains Challand.
In Iraq KBR Technology has been awarded two contracts by the Ministry of Oil through the South Refineries Company in August 2010. The company is providing licensing and basic engineering services for the construction of Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) and Solvent Deasphalting (SDA) units at the Maissan Refinery in Maissan, Iraq.
One of the biggest projects KBR has been involved in recently is Saudi Kayan. The company completed in August 2010, the construction of a 1.35 million metric tonnes per year (MTA) ethylene cracker, which is one of the largest ethylene crackers in the world.
“The challenges related to the Saudi Kayan project were related to the size of the project itself. It was a very large project, as it was not only the ethylene plant but also included all the facilities associated with it,” he says.
“Constructing such a large scale project is a challenge in itself, but the tough climatic condition in Jubail also represented another challenge for us as well,” he explains. “The Saudi Kayan project also represents the first phenol production unit in the Middle East. This was licensed by KBR,” Challand adds.
The success story of KBR in the Middle East has continued in 2011. The company won two contracts from Saudi Aramco in the first quarter of this year.
The first contract related to FEED and project management services (PMS) for the Jazan refinery project, on the Southern region of Saudi Arabia, while the second contract relates to the implementation of KBR’s proprietary solvent deasphalting (SDA) technology, ROSE, for Luberef’s Yanbu Refinery Expansion Project in Saudi Arabia.
“The project will benefit from KBR’s experience of designing over 50 ROSE units. This award underscores our commitment and reputation for providing process technology solutions that address our clients’ individual needs in the most cost effective and practical manner,” he concludes.
