The Oman Refineries and Petrochemical Co. (ORPC) turned to Black & Veatch for help in processing increasingly heavy crude and sour crudes to meet rising petroleum product demand in the region, while enhancing environmental performance. The operating flexibility of the Sohar Refinery would need to increase to achieve this objective.

Black & Veatch provided a process design package for two identical parallel sulfur recovery unit (SRU) trains processing both amine acid gas and sour water stripper acid gas.  Each SRU is designed to handle the full complement of ammonia-bearing sour water stripper gas in order to segregate acid gas feedstock for streamlining operations.

The common Tail Gas Treating Unit utilized generic methyl diethanol amine to achieve an overall sulfur recovery efficiency of 99.9 percent.

The process design package for ORPC included as part of the Sohar Refinery Improvement Project’s EPC (engineering, construction, procurement) package. Along with increased fuels production, the expansion will increase polypropylene production. Naptha feedstock to the integrated Aromatics Oman LLC facility will also be increased when the EPC package is completed.

Overall, the refinery expansion increased by roughly 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) above the existing 116,000 bpd capacity.