Neil Tague
A project that forms part of Essar Oil UK’s plans to decarbonise the Ellesmere Port refinery site has secured backing from the Government’s Industrial Energy Transformation Fund.
The funding has been made available through the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and will be invested in a project to install a new furnace in the crude distillation unit at Stanlow, able to run on a 100% hydrogen fuel source.
Support from BEIS represents a major boost for Essar. The Indian-owned company, which bought the 2,000-acre Stanlow refinery from Shell in 2011, was led in April to affirm its commitment to the site following reports of financial troubles.
The company has secured a £7.2m grant from the Government s Industrial Energy Transformation Fund. The funding will be invested in a project to install a new furnace in the crude distillation unit at Stanlow that will be able to run on a 100% hydrogen fuel source. It will be the UK’s first refinery-based furnace able to be fuelled entirely by hydrogen. Once completed and operational, the net zero ready furnace will reduce Stanlow’s CO2 emissions by 11% per year and deliver immediate energy efficiency improvements. The furnace will use hydrogen produced by the HyNet North West project at the site, with the first stage of the initiative set to come on stream in 2025.
New and revised entries Spain s Petronor said May 20 it is restarting the platforming unit in plant 2 following maintenance that started May 14. The company said May 17 it was restarting the turbo expander energy recovery unit from the refinery s FCC unit. The unit was halted May 4. The refinery currently has been operating at 40% of capacity since the CDU in plant 2 of the refinery was halted Nov. 20, 2020, due to market conditions. Poland s second largest refiner Grupa Lotos said May 13 a partial maintenance shutdown at its Gdansk refinery has been completed. All the work was done safely and on budget, Lotos said in a statement. The maintenance shutdown began on Feb. 26 with the shutdown of the delayed coker unit. In total, 16 units were shut, including the mild hydrocracking, CDU/VDU, heavy oil processing and hydrogen production plant, Lotos said. The installations resumed operations in early April. In the second stage of the maintenance, which began last month, three lu