ADNOC plans to become leading downstream player

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has unveiled plans to invest $45bn alongside partners, over the next five years, to become a leading global downstream player. The investment programme will underpin a new downstream strategy to significantly expand the company’s refining and petrochemical operations at Ruwais in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and undertake targeted overseas investments to secure greater market access.

ADNOC’s existing downstream portfolio comprises eight companies processing 10.5bn cf/d of gas, with a refining capacity of 922,000 b/d of condensate and crude. It produces some 40mn t/y of refined products, and a range of other products, including granulated urea, LPG, naphtha, gasoline, jet fuel, gas oil and base oils, fuel oil, and other petrochemical feedstock.

Plans are well advanced to expand the complex’s refining capacity by more than 65%, or 600,000 b/d by 2025, through the addition of a third, new refinery, creating a total capacity of 1.5mn b/d. The new refinery, coupled with other projects underway within the Ruwais complex, will significantly increase the capability, flexibility and output of Abu Dhabi’s refining operations by adding to the range of crudes that can be processed, which, in turn, will enable the export of increased volumes of the UAE’s high-value Murban crude.

The $45bn investment programme will also see the entire Ruwais complex upgraded to increase its flexibility and integrated capabilities to produce greater volumes of higher-value petrochemicals and derivative products. It includes a plan to build one of the world’s largest mixed feed crackers, trebling production capacity from 4.5mn t/y in 2016 to 14.4mn t/y by 2025.

ADNOC will also develop a new, large-scale, manufacturing ecosystem in Ruwais through the creation of new petrochemical Derivatives and Conversion Parks that will be fully integrated with the larger Ruwais complex. Partners will be invited to invest and produce new products and solutions from the growing range of feedstocks that are available in Ruwais, which will enable the creation of new petrochemical activities and value chains, in such fields as construction chemicals, oil and gas chemicals, surfactants and detergents, to name just a few.

In associated news, ADNOC has signed a project development agreement with Cepsa of Spain for a new, world-scale linear alkylbenzene (LAB) facility atRuwais. The LAB manufacturing facility will be fully integrated within the ADNOC refining complex, taking feedstocks of kerosene and benzene. It is expected to have a production capacity of 150,000 t/y of LAB.