Neste Oil Porvoo Refinery Diesel Project, Porvoo Kilpilahti, Finland

The Fortum Oil and Gas Oy (subsequently renamed to Neste Oil Corporation) Porvoo refinery at Kilpilahti, Finland, situated 35km east of Helsinki, undertook an upgrade and expansion of its diesel production facilities in August 2004. The expansion started on a 4.5ha site and required an investment of over €50m over a two-year period.

Production began in February 2007. The new facilities provided permanent jobs to a further 100 new personnel bringing the staff of the refinery to 1,100 personnel. The expansion was undertaken in response to a perceived shortage of diesel for the consumer and commercial markets in north-western Europe (particularly Germany and France).

HEAVY RESIDUE CONVERSION

The refinery introduced a new Heavy Residue Conversion (HRC) unit (residual oil cracking unit), which produces sulphur-free high-quality diesel fuel. The capacity of the HRC unit is 280t/hour.

The HRC unit operates in a hydrogen atmosphere under high pressure and temperature and so a new hydrogen plant was also constructed at the refinery. The sulphur recovery and sour water treatment units were also refurbished (new sulphur silos and a pelletising unit were constructed in the truck loading station). There are only three other similar units in operation in Europe.

THE PORVOO REFINERY

The Porvoo refinery is one of the largest in Scandinavia, producing over 200,000 barrels a day with an annual capacity of 11 million tonnes.

Following the diesel project the overall capacity of the refinery remained the same, but it is capable of increasing the refining of very profitable products, such as sulphur-free diesel fuel (<10ppm). Neste's diesel fuel production capacity at Porvoo is four million tonnes a year (85,000bpd).

The crude oil used in the Porvoo refinery is mainly REB (Russian Export Blend) and oil extracted from the North Sea resources, mainly carried in by tankers. Between two and three million tonnes are brought in by rail from the former Soviet Union, mainly from Russia.

The feedstocks (crude oil) and products (20 million tonnes combined) are discharged and loaded by more than 1,000 vessels a year at the Porvoo harbour. The majority diesel products provided to the domestic markets and exported are low-emission City Futura and City Diesel.

DIESEL PRODUCTION PROJECT

The main engineering contractor and project manager for the diesel production expansion project at the refinery was Neste Jacobs Oy (Neste Engineering is part of Neste Corporation's oil sector division). Planning was carried out by several companies including Rintekno, JP Suunnittelu, PI Consulting and Jyvästek.

YIT Rakennus Oy was the main contractor for excavation and site preparation. YIT Corporation was selected for the mechanical installation contract, which involved the installation of piping and equipment for the residual oil and hydrogen units which form part of the production line, as well as a delivery of steel structures.

YIT also supplied underground process piping for the production line. The delivery included about 200km of process piping, the largest of which were about 1,200mm in diameter, over 3,000t in steel structures and the installation of about 550 process equipment items. The largest item to be installed weighed 360t. The thickness of the walls of the high-pressure pipes was up to 90mm. The latest technology welding was used, based on an automated narrow groove and hot wire technique, which YIT developed in association with TEKES, the Lappeenranta University of Technology and VTT.

SUBCONTRACTORS

Metso Automation delivered the automation solution for the new production line and for the hydrogen plant. The system provided includes the MetsoDNA automation solution, HIMA safety related systems and FieldCare field equipment support tools. This turnkey delivery also included planning, installation, testing, start-up and training.

JP Engineering Ltd and JP-Kakko Oy, which are part of the Jaakko Pöyry Group's Forest Industry business group, were subcontracted by Neste Engineering Oy to provide engineering services for the diesel project. The value of the contract was estimated at €8m and included process, piping, equipment, automation, instrumentation, electrification and structural engineering as well as procurement services.

Vaasa Engineering delivered low- and medium-voltage switchgears for the new production line of the diesel project. The contract included close to 600 cubicles of VEDA low-voltage switchgears, 90 cubicles of medium-voltage switchgears, medium-voltage bus ducts, 200m of low-voltage bus ducts containing special structures and a substantial protection system together with electricity distribution control systems. The electricity distribution equipment delivered contains advanced control and protection technology, and they were connected to the upper level monitoring and control system with modern bus solutions.

Vaasa Engineering started the work in February 2005, it was complete by the third quarter of 2005.

HYDROGEN PRODUCTION PLANT

The diesel conversion process consumes considerable amounts of hydrogen, so the investment also included a large hydrogen plant with a capacity of 180,000Nm³/h (14t/h to 16t/h). This unit was licensed and engineered by the Thyssen Krupp Group engineering subsidiary UHDE GmbH for a €25m contract and is one of the largest one-line steam reforming hydrogen plants in the world.

The feedstocks for the unit are natural gas, refinery off-gas and liquid propane (these can be varied according to the refinery requirements). The Rintekno Group is responsible for automation, instrumentation, electrification and mechanical engineering of the hydrogen plant, which will be 3D modelled by an Intergraph PDS system. Rintekno were also involved in detailed process engineering of both the heavy residue unit and hydrogen unit. The detailed engineering work was completed by the start of 2005 and the new production line was started up in the first quarter of 2007 following commissioning.

HYDROCRACKER UNIT

The main unit of the new complex is a residue hydrocracking unit, which is basically an integrated LC-finer and mild hydrocracker.

The LC-finer hydroprocessor breaks down bitumen feed through a reaction with hydrogen over an ebulated catalyst bed and produces Light Gas Oil (LGO). High-pressure LC-fining reactors are central to the process. They were delivered by the Japan Steel Works Ltd (JSW).

The technology utilised in the residue hydrocracking unit was delivered by Chevron Lummus Global. The main feed is vacuum residue plus FCC slurry. Up to 11t/h of hydrogen is required for the plant. The integrated, dual-phase hydocracking unit operates under a pressure of 160bar.

The construction process required 12,000m³ of concrete for the foundations and 3,000t of steel construction along with a total of 180km of new piping. The cabling work meant that an additional 2,000km of cabling was needed. The new process line is referred to as production line four and requires 3,500t of cooling water. Therefore a new cooling water plant was also constructed to supply production lines three and four.

BIODIESEL PLANT

Another aspect of the diesel project at Porvoo refinery was the construction of a biodiesel plant. The total budgeted cost of the investment into this element of the new plant was approximately €100m, one-third of which was spent in 2005 and the remainder in 2006. The plant, which came online in the summer of 2007, has an annual capacity of approximately 170,000t of biodiesel (3,500bpd). Construction began in March 2005.

The production of biodiesel (NExBTL diesel) is based on a proprietary process developed by Neste Oil that produces high-quality diesel fuel from NExBTL raw materials such as palm oil, rapeseed oil, vegetable oils and animal fats. There is expected to be an increased demand for biodiesel since the EU is encouraging its member countries to boost the use of renewable raw materials in traffic fuels. The aim of the EU biofuel directive is to raise the proportion of biofuels to 5.75% of total gasoline and diesel consumption (energy content) by 2010. In mid-2008 the new plant produces 6.8% of the diesel consumption in Finland, which comes to 2.5 million tons per year.

Neste Oil and Gas Oy is the first oil company in Europe to successfully develop a second-generation biodiesel production process and to invest significant funds into it. Recent emission tests carried out by two leading heavy duty automobile manufacturers showed Neste biodiesel to be one of the best available. The biodiesel can be used as a blending component in conventional diesel fuel.

In 2007 Fortum Oil struck and agreement with Stora Enso (a paper and forest products company) to develop biofuels from wood residues. A €14m demonstration plant to produce wood-based biofuel for refining at Porvoo is under construction at the Varkaus mill using biomass gasification and the Fischer-Tropsch process technology developed by VTT Technical Research centre of Finland.

Neste Green Diesel became available in May 2008 and proved a success with drivers. The new fuel contains a minimum of 10% renewable fuel and complies with the EN 590 standard, and its launch represents an important step forward on the European traffic fuel market.

NEW PROJECT

In June 2008 Neste Oil decided to build a new isomerisation unit with an investment of around €80 million at the Porvoo refinery. The new unit will be able to process 600,000 t/a of existing gasoline fractions into higher-value, premium-quality gasoline to increase the refinery total gasoline output by 200,000 t/a. Construction of the new unit will start in 2009, and is due to come on stream at the beginning of 2011. Feedstock for the unit will come from the company’s refineries at Porvoo and Naantali.