PKN Orlen’s Plock PX unit set for 2009 start-up

16 November 2006 09:19  [Source: ICIS news]

AMSTERDAM (ICIS news)--The start-up date for PKN Orlen’s new paraxylene (PX) and benzene plant at Plock, Poland, will be in 2009, a company official said on Wednesday.

 

“The most important factor is to reduce our investment costs and the new project will enable us to use a lot of our existing facilities,” said Dr Wojciech Gardzinski, chief engineer for processing development at PKN Orlen, at the fifth European Aromatics and Derivatives conference in Amsterdam.

 

PX was originally chosen because of the site’s cheap feedstock and a requirement from 2005 to reduce aromatics in gasoline from 42% to 35%.

 

There was also a strong potential demand for PX and benzene in Poland due to the low level of existing aromatics production in the country.

 

PX production will therefore be increased from 32,000 tonnes/year to 400,000 tonnes/year, Gardzinski said.

 

“We have a decreasing demand for gasoline in Poland because we substitute liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for motorfuel.

 

“Polish demand for LPG is now 1m tonnes/year making it the number two consumer in Europe two years ago and it is probably the number one consumer now, ahead of Italy,” he said.

 

In 2005, together with a revamp of the olefins plant, PKN Orlen instigated an ‘optimisation of aromatics management’ programme, which has resulted in a more efficient production process using extractive distillation.

 

“We will be able to use toluene for PX production and practically all the reformate will be used for PX production,” he added.

 

The conference, organised by ICIS and consultants International eChem, finishes today.

By: Barbara Ortner
+44 20 8652 3214

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