Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) Refinery Upgrade, Bahrain

In 1998, Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) unveiled plans to upgrade its ageing oil refinery at a cost of around $800 million. The project had been fully awarded by mid 2000. The plan is aimed at upgrading the refinery's major products and to improve efficiency to make BAPCO more competitive. The site upgrade will involve several standalone projects. This should have the effect of making the onset of production into a more modular process, helping Bapco to start achieving returns within the shortest possible time.

BAPCO is now commissioning a new series of projects designed to completely modernise diesel production at the refinery and to bring its diesel products fully into compliance with strict new emissions regulations. See the BAPCO Low Sulphur Diesel Project for more information

BAPCO

BAPCO was formed in 1929, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Caltex Petroleum Corporation, a joint venture of Standard Oil Of California (now Chevron) and the Texas Company (now Texaco). Caltex retained a 40% share in the company in 1981 but by 1997 the Bahrain government assumed total ownership. The refinery's current capacity is over 250,000 barrels/day, supplying a range of petroleum products for local and export markets. Approximately one-sixth of its crude oil is obtained from wells in Bahrain, the balance being supplied from Saudi Arabia through undersea pipelines.

PLANT UPGRADE PROJECT TIMESCALE

The project has a relatively lengthy time scale of six years. The plant upgrade was begun in 1998 and is due to be completed in all its aspects by 2004. The award of the various component contracts took two years.

DIESEL OIL SULPHUR REDUCTION

In May 1999 Bechtel Ltd was awarded a contract to conduct a study of the engineering work for a project to reduce the amount of sulphur in Bapco's diesel oil. The FEED (Front End Engineering Design) phase was completed in December 1999, and was followed by the EPC (Engineering Procurement and Construction) phase. The estimated cost of this part of the project is $400 million. This stage of the project is expected to be completed by late 2002.

BAPCO is also seeking to further reduce the sulphur content in its diesel to 0.05% from the current figure of around 0.5%. In 1998, BAPCO awarded JGC Corporation of Japan a lump sum contract for an in-line blending project at a cost of around $66 million. This was completed in the middle of 2000.

The project will enable BAPCO to optimise the production of on-specification finished products, improve safety in handling components and products and facilitate flexibility in changing the product mix to respond to market opportunities. BAPCO has approved a project to replace the 50-year-old generator control unit west gas compressors with a single rotary machine.

BAPCO has implemented the production of unleaded gasoline, which involves the upgrading of catalytic reformer and facilities to import MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) as blendstock, at a cost of $6.9 million. This project was completed in the third quarter of 2000, enabling Bahrain to produce unleaded gasoline. There is also a scheduled $21.5 million replacement of the gas compressors in 2001, which will improve process efficiency and reduce maintenance costs.