Eni sold the license and the basic engineering project for the construction of a refining plant based on Eni Slurry Technology (EST) to the Chinese company Sinopec. The plant will be built at the Sinopec refinery in Maoming, in the province of Guandong.
Sinopec, the largest company in the world in the refining sector, will therefore be the first international company to use EST technology, the result of research and industrial developments carried out by Eni and able to completely convert refining residuals into high-quality light products. quality, eliminating the production of heavy liquids and solid refining residues with significant environmental advantages.
Sinopec will build an EST plant capable of treating 46.000 barrels per day of heavy refining residues (310 tons per hour), which will replace the current pet-coke production line, with significant environmental advantages and in compliance with the new legislation IMO (International Maritime Organization) on the use of fuels in maritime transport. The elimination of pet coke production goes in the direction of global containment of CO2 emissions. Under the license agreement, Eni provides Sinopec with the basic engineering project (Process Design Package) and other services, such as operational and technical training and assistance during the development and implementation of detailed engineering , and during the pre-commissioning and start-up phases of the plant (start up). Sinopec will take care of the detailed engineering and construction operations.
The completion of the plant construction operations is scheduled for the 2020.
Eni attributes strategic importance to research and development in all its business areas, and this result represents a major success: both because it involves the transfer of the right to use proprietary technology to the world leader in the sector, and has chosen the EST among the available global technology; and because it happens in a business environment, that of refining, which for the first time lives a technological innovation of Italian origin.