JSC "Naftan" plans to complete the reconstruction of the "Visbreaking-Thermocracking" unit this year.

June 15, Minsk / Irina Aniskevich - BELTA /. Naftan OJSC plans to complete the reconstruction of the Visbreaking-Thermocracking unit in the fourth quarter of the current year, the Belneftekhim concern informed BELTA correspondent. The commissioning of the facility will allow extracting an additional amount of vacuum gas oil from the residues of the visbreaking process, which will increase the depth of oil refining. The capacity of the unit, designed by Koch-Glitsch, will be up to 200 tons of feedstock per hour. For the first time, heavy coking residue will be used as feedstock. Over time, the vacuum unit of the Visbreaking-Thermocracking facility will become one of the suppliers of feedstock for the delayed coking unit (DCU). And the coke produced at the DCU can not only be sold as a commodity product but also used at the enterprise to generate thermal and electrical energy. Currently, technical inspection of the installed main equipment – a 48-meter-high vacuum column – is underway. Installation of other equipment and laying of pipelines are being carried out. The vacuum unit is built on the basis of a modern vacuum generation system. The project uses a new, box-type furnace. The peculiarity of the entire structure is its compactness: most of the equipment will be located on four floors of a specially erected overpass. As explained in the concern, environmental requirements for the quality of fuel oil, primarily regarding sulfur content, are increasing every year. Also, the use of fuel oil for the production of thermal and electrical energy is decreasing. In these conditions, Naftan OJSC decided to gradually reduce fuel oil production and produce other, more valuable products from it. The first stage in solving this problem was the construction of the vacuum unit of the Visbreaking-Thermocracking facility since 2009. The Novopolotsk oil refinery Naftan was commissioned in 1963 and is part of the Belneftekhim concern. The plant specializes in the production of fuel and oil products, producing more than 70 types, including oils, gasoline, and diesel fuel of Euro-4 and Euro-5 standards. About 70% of the products are supplied to the CIS countries, the European Union, the Middle East, and the USA. At the end of 2008, Polimir OJSC joined Naftan OJSC, and a petrochemical complex was created. -0-