Objective
This contract concerns the second stage of a project, the intention of which is to perfect methods of preprocessing non-conventional heavy oils that are applicable at the production field, so as to facilitate their conveyance by pipeline. The viscosity of these oils and bitumens is so high that they are not transportable as such and that they cannot be fed in the existing refineries without a prior severe treatment.
The first stage of the project concerned the general studies required to define the specifications of the units and to draught the layout drawings.
The second stage of the project concerns the engineering of the installations of the experimental platform, which has a capacity of 20,000 tons per year.
This experimental platform includes the following units : desalting, atmospheric distillation, vacuum distillation, deasphalting by heavy solvents, visbreaker, hydrovisbreaker and a very flexible hydrotreatment which can be diversely operated according to the following alternatives : a down-flow fixed bed, countercurrent moving bed, expansed bed, ebullating bed, suspended bed (when using a colloidal catalyst). For a capacity ranging between 1 to 4 t/hour, the main features of every unit and also of the platform as a whole are their flexibility, their representativity and the up-to-dateness specially in the field of operating control. The necessary utilities are produced on the site or delivered from the proximate Feyzin Refinery; 15 tanks can be used for the storage of feedstocks and products.
The detailed engineering and the supervision of the construction were both worked out by TECHNIP and the following up of the whole project was carried out by ASVAHL, a joint-venture involving IFP, ELF-france and TOTAL-France.
The total cost of this experimental platform is bordering 300 Million FF.
The work comprised:
- the engineering and supervision of construction
- follow-up of the construction and acceptance testing of the installations by the operator: ASVAHL (association pour la valorisation des huiles lourdes).
The field of application of the contract concerned only the thermo-physical method involving the following units: desalination, atmospheric distillation, vacuum distillation, de-asphalting, visbreaking, hydrovisbreaking and the appurtenant installations, mamely the utilities, storage facilities and links to the FEYZIN refinery.
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
DEM - Demonstration contractsCoordinator
92500 Rueil Malmaison
France