Specialists at Ukraine’s 320,000 b/d LINIK refinery, part of TNK-BP, have made a wary yet optimistic forecast that upon completion of scheduled maintenance in Sept.-Oct. this year, refinery’s technological scheme will be completed with the updated hydrogen generating facility. This new short-cycle adsorption facility will allow production of hydrogen with purification efficiency as high as 99,4%.
The mounting of the hydrogen concentration facility using short-cycle adsorption method was accomplished late in August. Representatives of the German company Linde, the supplier of the equipment and developer of the technology, carried out control over commissioning procedures.
The method of hydrogenous gas purification will to a considerable degree secure hydrogen supply not only for the operating plants but also for the prospective projects that are planned on the refinery in the future. As reported earlier, one of such projects will be reconstruction of diesel fuels hydrofining plant, which essentially requires hydrogen.
According to Alexander Ivanov, a former head of the refinery, the upgraded plant will allow monthly gas saving of as much as 900,000 to 1 mn m3. Thus, given the current gas prices for industry (which is around $300 for 1000 ì3 of gas, including taxes), the refinery will be able to save $300,000 annually. The cost of construction project of short-cycle adsorption unit alone totaled to $8 million.
Reservoirs for the facility were manufactured at the Chernovtsy engineering plant in western Ukraine. According to Vadim Naumov, the plant’s director of marketing, told OILMARKET that the “door-to-door” transportation of the unit was also carried out by his enterprise.
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