Site

• Start UP : 1973 | Revamp: 2013
• Processing Capacity : 3.75 mt/a
   

Oct 2023

Production Capacities

The Arzew refinery processes 2.5 million tons per year of Saharan crude oil and 280,000 tons of imported oil for an annual production capacity of different units of:

• 15,000 tons of propane
• 70,000 tons of butane
• 70,000 tons of premium gasoline
• 490,000 tons of regular gasoline
• 160,000 tons of naphtha
• 120,000 tons of kerosene
• 980,000 tons of diesel
• 550,000 tons of low sulfur fuel oil (BTS)
• 70,000 tons of high sulfur fuel oil (HTS)
• 160,000 tons of lubricants
• 70,000 tons of grease
• 4,000 tons of paraffins
• 120,000 tons of road bitumen
• 20,000 tons of oxidized bitumen

Presentation of the main installations of RA1Z

The Arzew refinery includes four production departments P1, P2, P3 and P4.
Each department consists of several zones with specific activities and is composed of different production units. 
The Production Department P1 concerns the production of fuels, lubricants and bitumen by processing Hassi-Messaoud crude oil as feedstock and imported reduced crude oil for bitumen production. It consists of the following zones:

• Zone 03 (Utilities)
  This zone is built to supply other zones with: air, steam, water, electricity, and gas which are very important for the processing units. It is divided into several units:
  • Unit 31: High pressure steam production used for stripping and as driving power for turbo generators
  • Unit 32: Production of distilled water used as feed water for boilers
  • Unit 33: Cooling water distribution, used for product cooling operations
  • Unit 34: Electricity production used to power processing units
  • Unit 35: Combustion gas for boilers and furnaces
  • Unit 36: Service air and instrument air production
  • Unit 67: Fire protection networks
     
• Zone 04 (Fuels)
  This is the starting point of the crude oil refining process. It includes 5 units:
  • Unit 11: Atmospheric distillation (Topping) unit. Its role is to separate by atmospheric distillation the different components contained in crude oil according to their densities, from lightest to heaviest:   
    • Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)
    • Light naphtha (LN)
    • Heavy naphtha (HN)
    • Kerosene
    • Light and heavy gas oil
    • Atmospheric residue
  • Unit 12: (Catalytic Reforming): processes heavy naphtha (HN) from atmospheric distillation to produce a high-octane gasoline base (reformate)
  • Unit 13: (Gas treatment): processes gas obtained from units 11, 12 and 17, separating it into pure products such as propane (C₃H₈) and butane C₄H₁₀)
  • Unit 17: Isomerization: processes light naphtha (LN) from atmospheric distillation to improve its octane rating
  • Unit 18: Hot oil system unit: provides heat using a heat transfer fluid for units 11 and 17.
     
• Zone 07 (Lubricants)
  This zone aims to manufacture base oils from atmospheric reduced crude coming from the topping unit (unit 11), with a production capacity of 50,000 tons/year. 
  It includes the following units:
  • Unit 20: Oil storage
  • Unit 21: Vacuum distillation unit. It processes the residue from unit 11 of zone 4 which is drawn under vacuum, to obtain semi-finished base oils:
    • VGO gas oils
    • SPO (Spindle) oils
    • Medium viscosity oils
    • Viscous oils
    • Vacuum residue
  • Unit 22: Propane deasphalting unit. It processes the vacuum residue (RSV) from unit 21 in a column by extraction using propane as a solvent, to obtain deasphalted oil (DAH)
  • Unit 23: Furfural extraction unit.

(Source)