Air Products has inaugurated a new industrial gas complex at the Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) Kochi Refinery in Kochi, India.
Located within the Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP), the new facility will help BPCL to expand its refining capacity from 190,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 310,000bpd and produce fuels that comply with Euro-IV/Euro-V standards.
Air Products leased 15 acres of land from BPCL to build the complex, which will generate hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and steam. It has been established on a build-own-operate (BOO) model and is expected to provide employment to around 50 workers.
Air Products executive vice-president Dr Samir Serhan said: “Air Products is privileged to serve BPCL’s expansion needs at Kochi to provide significantly more high-quality, cleaner-burning fuels.
“I am very proud of the team for their excellent work on this project, which achieved a flawless start-up and is now reliably supplying industrial gases to the BPCL refinery.”
The complex will feature a gas turbine that is integrated into the design of the twin steam methane reformers, which have the combined capacity to produce 16.4t per hour of hydrogen.
BPCL and Air Products signed an agreement in January this year to build, own and operate a new syngas production facility, which will be located beside the industrial gas complex.
The production facility will use Air Products’ proprietary cryogenic gas separation technologies to produce syngas, which will serve BPCL’s new propylene derivates petrochemical project (PDPP).
