The first piece of major equipment – the vacuum fractionation tower – for ExxonMobil’s new hydrocracker arrived in Rotterdam, Netherlands, by barge last week. The vacuum fractionation tower was built in Belgium and is about 50 metres long and 9 metres wide.

This past June, ExxonMobil broke ground on the construction for the new hydrocracker at the company’s Rotterdam refinery.  The unit will upgrade heavier hydrocarbon byproducts into cleaner, higher value finished products such as EHC^TM Group II base stocks and ultra-low sulphur diesel.

The project work is on schedule and the new unit is scheduled to start up in late 2018. With this expansion, Rotterdam will become a major player in ExxonMobil’s global network to support evolving lubricant customer quality requirements.