Commercial debut planned for an FCC process with enhanced olefins production

JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. (JX_NOE; Tokyo, Japan; www.noe.jx-group.co.jp) plans to construct the first commercial plant to utilize its high-severity fluid catalytic cracking (HS-FCC) technology, which has been demonstrated to generate higher ethylene and propylene yields compared to conventional FCC technology. The new plant, which could start operating as early as 2018 at the company’s Kashima Refinery, will have a processing capacity of 24,000 bbl/d of crude oil, which is eight times larger than the semi-commercial demonstration plant JX_NOE has operated at its Mizushima Refinery since April 2011 (Chem. Eng., August 2013, p. 10; www.chemengonline.com/chementator/10782.html), and is equivalent to an ethylene capacity of 300,000 ton/d. JX_NOE will invest around $500–1,000 million for the project, which includes the construction of both the HS-FCC plant and the associated olefin-conversion unit. JX_NOE currently supplies 1 million ton/yr of propylene to the petrochemical market, and aims to become the leading propylene supplier in Asia by boosting this to 1.8-million ton/yr, with 300,000 ton/yr from the new HS-FCC plant and the remaining 400,000–500,000 ton/yr from production plants outside Japan. The company…