The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC; www.adnoc.ae) announced it has signed a project development agreement with Compañía Española de Petróleos S.A.U. (Cepsa; Madrid, Spain; www.cepsa.com) for a new, world-scale Linear Alkylbenzene (LAB) facility in ADNOC’s refining and petrochemicals complex in Ruwais, UAE. The LAB project is one among a number of initiatives to be executed as ADNOC looks to significantly enhance and expand its refining operations and capabilities to support its downstream plans.
The agreement follows the signing last November of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ADNOC and Cepsa to evaluate the setting up of a LAB facility in Ruwais. After the successful completion of a feasibility study, the project is now ready to move to the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) stage. The LAB manufacturing facility will be fully integrated within the ADNOC Refining complex, taking feedstocks of kerosene and benzene and benefitting from the suite of utilities and services of the Ruwais complex. The facility is expected to have a production capacity of 150,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of LAB upon completion.
Abdulaziz Al Hajri, Downstream Director at ADNOC, said: “We are pleased to be moving forward with our partnership with Cepsa, through its chemical business to develop a new LAB facility in Ruwais. As we expand downstream and grow our refining capacity and capabilities, we will be able to expand the number of new products and value chains we can create. The development of a new LAB facility will enable the emergence of a surfactants cluster in our new Ruwais Derivatives and Conversion Parks, diversifying the number and type of industries being developed there, leading to the creation of an expanded and advanced petrochemicals ecosystem in the UAE.”
Echoing this commitment towards the development of the downstream cluster, Pedro Miró, CEO of Cepsa, said: “The start-up of this complex underscores our commitment to continue developing our international operations as part of our integrated business model. We are delighted with our collaboration with ADNOC across several of our businesses (Chemicals, E&P, Trading), and we are convinced that the future will bring us further opportunities to grow together. The Ruwais petrochemicals cluster strengthens our position as leaders in LAB and DETALTM technology, developed jointly with UOP, and adds to our plants in Spain, Canada, and Brazil, as well as giving us access to high growth markets to the east of the Suez Canal”.