A multi-billion-dollar project to raise Bahrain Petroleum Company’s (Bapco) refining capacity by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) is on track with the signing of the front-end engineering and design (Feed) contract yesterday (September 15).

Project management, engineering and construction firm Technip Italy will carry out the Feed for the Bapco Modernisation Programme (BMP), said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

The programme is Bapco's most ambitious project to-date and is estimated to cost upwards of $5 billion.

The Feed contract will take 16 months to complete and cost about $55 million, Technip Italy chief executive Marco Villa told the GDN after signing the contract with Bapco chief executive Dr Peter Bartlett at the Bapco Club in Awali.

Villa said Technip, operating from its office in Rome, Italy, is confident of completing the front-end development work on schedule and within cost.

The company will also utilise its offices in Abu Dhabi and its high-value engineering centre in Greece for the project, he added.

Dr Bartlett said the BMP comprises a group of related projects managed in a co-ordinated way to obtain maximum benefits.

“It follows a $1.2 billion Strategic Investment Programme, as a result of which the refinery is now the first in the Middle East with the capability to produce nearly 100,000 bpd of Euro V diesel and Group III lube oil base stock.”

A key aim of the BMP is to improve gross refining margins and cost-efficiencies, he said.

The refinery configuration post-BMP would allow for higher throughput, improved product quality and ensure Bapco's continued competitiveness under a wide range of prices and market scenarios, Dr Bartlett added.

According to him, the BMP would also improve energy efficiency and address all local environmental compliance requirements anticipated in the near future.

Key projects include a crude unit and associated facilities, hydrocracker and associated facilities, residue conversion units and a waste treatment facility.

“The residue conversion unit will open access to cheaper feedstock of heavy crude oil and thus, a larger diversity of sources of supply,” he said.

The hydrocracker and associated facilities will include a new hydrocracking unit with 60,000 bpd capacity, expansion of the mild hydrocracking unit from 54,000 bpd to 70,000 bpd capacity and a new fluid catalytic cracker.

A dehydrosulphurisation unit is also planned to produce diesel according to international standards with sulphur content of less than 10 parts per million.

Dr Bartlett said once the design packages are finalised by early 2016, the engineering, procurement and construction stage would begin with commissioning of the new units expected by 2020.

Bapco's current refining capacity is 265,000 bpd. - TradeArabia News Service