ORPIC (Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company) has closed a US$2.8bn financing with a consortium of 21 international and national financial institutions for its Sohar Refinery Improvement Project (SRIP). This SRIP project aims to overcome the existing technical constraints resulting from the change in the quality of the Oman Export Blend (OEB), meet the increasing demand for refined products, and support the industrial development initiatives of Oman. As part of the project, SRIP will improve the Residue Fluidized Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) unit feed quality to meet design parameters, maximize additional gasoline and diesel production, ensure that all Sohar Refinery fuel products are in conformity with Euro IV norms and meet current product specifications where these are better than Euro IV, produce naphtha of desired quality for the Aromatics plant, and equip the refinery with the necessary tools to become capable of producing bitumen and petroleum coke. Following the completion of SRIP, the Sohar Refinery will be a high conversion refinery using RFCC (existing).
The existing refinery at Sohar, which first started operation in 2006, has a processing capacity of 116,400 bbl/d of OEB crude oil. The new units that will be built as a part of SRIP will add a further 82,000 bbl/d of OEB crude oil processing capacity, to achieve a total refining capacity of 198,000 bbl/d. Crude throughput of the refinery will increase by 70% with increased product yields for diesel (90%), gasoline (37%), Jet Fuel (93%), LPG (91%), Naphtha (175%) and Propylene (44%).