GE Oil & Gas to Build World's Largest Slurry Reactors for ENI's Sannazzarro Refinery

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Oil and gas firm ENI S.p.A. (NYSE:E) (Rome, Italy) has awarded GE Oil & Gas (Florence, Italy), a subsidiary of General Electric (NYSE:GE) (Fairfield, Connecticut), a contract to provide ENI with the world's largest slurry reactors. Financial details have not been disclosed. The two reactors will play a critical role in ENI's Refining and Marketing division's expansion project at ENI's Sannazzarro refinery. The Sannazzarro refinery, situated in the Po Valley, is being expanded in production capacity in order to address the increasing energy requirements of Italy's most industrialized area, the Turin-Milan-Genoa region. The refinery also serves the markets of Switzerland.

The heavy-walled slurry reactors will be manufactured in the components production facility of GE Oil and Gas in Massa, Italy. The reactors are used for high-temperature and high-pressure processes such as desulfurization, hydrocracking and hydrotreating. Each reactor will weigh about 2,000 tons -- the largest reactor produced to date. The most modern manufacturing procedures, such as Cr-Mo-Vanadium welding, will be used to manufacture the reactors. This technique prevents corrosion in refineries and in other unfavorable environments.

The reactors will play a critical role in a new process technology to be used by ENI, where each barrel of feedstock will be able to produce an increased output of middle distillates. The refinery will use the ENI Slurry Technology (EST), an ENI proprietary process that enables higher efficiency in the production of heavy oils, residues distillation and unconventional oils. EST produces no residues, unlike the conventional heavy oil cracking processes.

Delivering the gigantic reactors is likely to be an arduous task. The refinery is located in a heavily populated area and thus the reactors cannot be delivered in an assembled state. GE's Massa facility will weld the forged rings for the units and transport them to the refinery in trucks specially designed for the purpose. A temporary facility set up at the site of the project will be used to assemble the reactors.

According to the contract, GE Oil & Gas will deliver the two reactors to the Sannazzarro refinery in the first quarter of 2011. The refinery is expected to begin commercial operation in 2012.

View Plant Profile - 1083333

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.