French Axens to help modernize Bukhara Oil Refinery to stop producing AI-80 gasoline

At the beginning of the year, the President of Uzbekistan instructed Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov to resolve the issue of the final abandonment of AI-80 gasoline from 2025.

According to Uzbekneftegaz, due to the modernization of the Bukhara oil refinery, it is planned to produce high-octane grades of gasoline AI-92 and AI-95 in volumes of 60% and 40%, respectively. All gasoline produced in a volume of over 1 million tons per year (initially planned 1.2 million tons) will comply with the Euro-5 environmental class, which will allow us to abandon the production of AI-80 of the Euro-2 class, the report says.

The project is planned to be implemented in 2024-2025 in Fast-Track mode with parallel design and construction.

Axens will design process units including a 360,000 ton/year naphtha hydrotreater, a 380,000 ton/year isomerization unit and a 60,000 ton/year selective pyrolysis distillate hydrogenation unit.

For parallel design, agreements were reached with the French company on a license agreement for the use of Axens technologies, including personnel training and an agreement to develop a package of design documentation, which will take about 5.5 months.

The potential general contractor for the project is the Chinese China National Petroleum Corporation, which will modernize the Bukhara Oil Refinery within two years. They also want to involve her in the construction of underground gas storage facilities.

A three-phase modernization of the plant worth $553 million began in 2019. The project, developed by the South Korean SK Engineering, provided for reaching the design capacity for processing 2.5 million tons of oil and gas condensate and producing 1.2 million tons of Euro-5 gasoline, 200 thousand tons of jet fuel, 750 thousand tons of diesel fuel by the end of 2025 and 30 thousand tons of fuel oil annually.

Axens has previously collaborated with Uzbekneftegaz on other projects. For example, in 2020, thanks to the technology of a French company, the production of diesel fuel of Euro-4 and Euro-5 standards was launched at the Bukhara Oil Refinery.