Aden Refinery Upgrading

Aden refinery was built in 1954 to satisfy the local requirements and for fuel bunker supplied to vessels in the Aden harbor. The refinery was operated till 1985 on the same technology furnished in the fifties of the last century.
In 1985 a major dredging work was done in the oil harbor to increase its capability to receive bigger tankers, new vacuum, asphalt and lpg units were constructed. In the tank farm area, new tanks were erected and a big number of other tanks were renewed. All these works kept the refinery running economically.
Increasing in crude oil prices and decreasing in refining margin forced the refinery to search for new technologies and processes to upgrade the refinery so as it can process low price crude oil. The expected upgrading of the refinery will improve the returns of the refinery and provide the market with better products qualities that meet the international specifications.
Upgrading of the refinery needs huge investments, which demand a government approval to facilitate financing process. The Yemeni government accepted to support the refinery plans in upgrading. International companies were called to submit their offers in work on refinery upgrading study, which will upgrade the existing process units and introduce new units and technology. UOP had succeeded to take over the feasibility study, all required technical information wre given and by the end of the year 2007 a complete feasibility study will be ready for the refinery upgrading.
In a proceeding step, a technical study is going paralell with refinery feasibility study to build a new complex for Mogas production. This complex is planned to include naphtha hydro treating unit, CCR unit and Isomerization unit. The target of this project is to produce high quality Mogas to meet the international specification. The produced Mogas will be 95 in octane number and unleaded which will improve the environmental status in Yemen.
All the studies will be handed to professional international companies to prepare the engineering documentations ready for implementation of the projects.
In the same time a specialized financing company, deloite is working on a study for different project financing scenarios.