Adnoc will ramp up its operating rate to near 100 per cent
Adnoc to ramp up run rate at newly expanded Ruwais refinery by June
SINGAPORE, April 20, 2015
State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (Adnoc) is expected to ramp up run rates and have all of the units at its newly expanded Ruwais refinery operating by June, industry sources said.
The expanded refinery, which is currently running at close to 60 per cent of capacity, aims to start up a residual fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) unit and a hydrocracker unit by the end of April, one of the sources familiar with the matter said.
Once the units start up, Adnoc will ramp up its operating rate to near 100 per cent by processing more crude oil at the end of April before scaling back to about 80 to 90 per cent of its capacity by June, the source added.
The expanded refinery will more than double the capacity from 415,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) and process the flagship Murban crude oil grade.
"The RFCC and hydrocracker will take about 2 to 3 months to stabilise...By June, all the units should be onstream and production should be around 80 to 90 per cent," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak with media.
The RFCC and hydrocracker are secondary units which produce higher value products such as gasoline, jet fuel and diesel.
Once gasoline production from the RFCC unit is stable, Adnoc will no longer need to import gasoline and the country will be well-balanced. It might even have about 845,000 to 1.69 million barrels a year to export, the source said.
The UAE imported about 660,000 barrels to 1.95 million barrels of gasoline a month over August to December last year, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (Jodi) showed.
The expanded refinery is expected to double its jet fuel and diesel production, stepping up exports from the refinery, dragging down Asian middle distillates margins, traders said.
JET FUEL CARGOES TO EUROPE
Adnoc has exported less than 1 million tonnes of jet fuel and diesel from the new refinery since it started exports in March, traders said.
The majority of the jet fuel cargoes are being shipped to Europe, while diesel is either staying within the region or heading to Brazil, they said.
"The arbitrage to ship diesel to Europe doesn't work right now, plus Adnoc is not guaranteeing Europe specs as the refinery has just started operations," one of them said.
While the refinery will be able to meet Europe's summer diesel specifications, it is unclear if it will be able to meet the more stringent winter specifications though that is the plan, they added. --Reuters
