Hydrotreater Project Development in North America Continues Upward Trend

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). During the last three years, numerous projects to add or revamp hydrotreater units at existing North American petroleum refineries have been developed to meet ever-stringent mandates for low sulfur gasoline and ultra low sulfur diesel fuel. In addition to the environmental projects, there are a number of new hydrotreater unit additions being planned as part of refinery capacity expansions to meet growing domestic demand. Record per barrel oil prices have resulted in big profits for the oil companies. Strong demand coupled with environmental mandates to clean up fuel are driving significant expenditures for hydrotreating equipment and service. According to Chris Paschall, Vice President Refining for Industrial Info, “As long as refiners continue to experience higher than normal profit margins, investments in hydrotreating capacity will continue to grow.”

In North America, there are about 130 projects totaling more than $30 billion, in which hydrotreaters are involved. These projects are scheduled to begin construction between 2006 and 2014. The largest projects involving hydrotreater unit construction are billion dollar grassroot oil sands upgraders in Alberta. However, there are also a good number of unit additions at existing refineries, revamps/upgrades, and maintenance projects. Hydrotreater maintenance typically involves catalyst change-out, and replacement or modification of reactors, heat exchangers, compressors, heaters, columns and more.

Click on the image at right to view a breakdown of hydrotreater project work by market region.

Capacity expansions where hydrotreaters are involved are most prevalent in the Southwest Region, which is looking at approximately 40 projects totaling $1.5 billion in total investment value (TIV).

In Western Canada, there is a record number of new grassroot upgrader/refinery construction planned with hydrotreater units involved; currently 32 projects with a TIV of $26 billion.

The hydrotreater is a common process unit in a petroleum refinery used for treating petroleum fractions from atmospheric or vacuum distillation units, such as naphtha, middle distillates, reformer feeds, residual fuel oil, and heavy gas oil, as well as cat cracked naphtha, coker naphtha, and gas oil in the presence of catalysts and substantial quantities of hydrogen. Hydrotreaters reduce sulfur and nitrogen contaminants and improve the combustion performance of transportation fuels.

For details on projects in this report contact Industrial Info’s Member Center at 1-800-762-3361.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 23 years. IIR is respected as the leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.