IOC’s Haldia Refinery to license base oil technology from Chevron Lummus

McDermott International, Inc. announced that Chevron Lummus Global (CLG), McDermott’s joint venture with Chevron, has been awarded a sizeable license and engineering contract for a 270 thousand metric ton per annum (TMTPA) base oil refinery at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.’s (IOC) Haldia Refinery in West Bengal, India. The plant will use CLG’s ISODEWAXING and ISOFINISHING technologies.

The Haldia unit will be designed to primarily produce premium API Group III base oils by processing unconverted oil from an upstream hydrocracking unit. Growth is projected in India’s base oil market, and the new unit will help reduce dependence on imported base oils.

“CLG’s lubricants technologies provide worldwide licensees with vast commercial experience, superior performance and optimum utilization of existing assets,” said Leon de Bruyn, senior vice president of McDermott’s Lummus Technology business.

The contract was signed in the second quarter of 2019.

IOC’s Haldia Refinery is the only coastal refinery of India’s largest state-owned oil and gas company and the only one that produces lubricant base stocks. According to F&L Asia’s Asian Lube Map, the Haldia Refinery currently has the capacity to produce 275 TMTPA of Group I, II and III base oils. 

The refinery, which was commissioned in January 1975, is situated 136 kilometres downstream of Kolkata, in the district of Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, near the confluence of the Hooghly and Haldi rivers. Spread over an area of 500 acres, the Haldia Refinery consists of four blocks of process units called the Fuel Oil Block, the Lube Oil Block, the OHCU Block and the DHDS Block. A Catalytic Dewaxing Unit (CIDWU) was installed and commissioned in 2003 for production of Group II base stocks.

Petroleum products from the Haldia refinery are supplied mainly to eastern India through two product pipelines, namely Haldia-Mourigram-Rajband Pipeline (HMRBPL), and Haldia-Barauni-Kanpur Pipeline (HBKPL), as well as through barges, tankers, tank wagons and tank trucks.

McDermott’s Lummus Technology is a leading licensor of proprietary petrochemicals, refining, gasification and gas processing technologies, and a supplier of proprietary catalysts and related engineering. With a heritage spanning more than 100 years, encompassing approximately 3,100 patents and patent applications, Lummus Technology provides one of the industry’s most diversified technology portfolios to the hydrocarbon processing sector. 

Based in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., McDermott is a premier, fully integrated provider of technology, engineering and construction solutions to the energy industry. Operating in more than 54 countries, McDermott’s locally focused and globally-integrated resources include approximately 32,000 employees, a diversified fleet of specialty marine construction vessels and fabrication facilities around the world.