Mina al Ahmadi Refinery , Kuwait

Kuwait Upto Date • January 9, 2015 • 7 Comments

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Kuwait has restarted a 122,000 barrels per day crude unit at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery last week after a two-week shutdown for maintenance work, a spokesman of state-run oil refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said.

The crude unit was back online on Jan. 2 with 80 percent capacity and is expected to return to full capacity by Jan. 21 after completion of all maintenance, spokesman Khalid al-Asousi told Reuters.

Mina al-Ahmadi, the country’s largest refinery, has three crude distillation units with a total capacity of around 442,000 bpd. (Reporting by Rania El Gamal; additional reporting by Jessica Jaganathan in Singapore, editing by William Hardy)

(Source : Maktoob)

Mina Al-Ahmadi Refinery (MAA) was built in 1949 as a simple refinery with a refining capacity not exceeding 25,000 bpd to supply the local market with its needs of gasoline, kerosene and diesel. The refinery is located 45 km to the South of Kuwait City on the Arabian Gulf. It covers a total area of 10,534,000 m2.

Following the establishment of KPC and the restructuring of the oil sector, ownership of the refinery was passed from Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) to Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) which became responsible for the oil refining and gas liquefaction operations in Kuwait. In the early 1980’s as part of an overall plan

to upgrade the refining industry and expand the refineries , work started on two ambitious projects to modernize Mina Al-Ahmadi Refinery, namely the MAA-Refinery Modernization Project (MAA-RMP) (which was completed in 1984) and the Further Upgrading Project MAA-FUP (which was commissioned in 1986). Within the framework of these two projects, 29 new units were built at this refinery which has now become one of the world’s modern refineries in terms of both refining capacity, which exceeds 460,000 bpd and the advanced technology it employs.

Mina Al-Ahmadi Refinery Modernization Project (RMP) was basically intended to provide the local and world markets with low sulphur -content petroleum products, and to reduce dependence on gas as fuel, providing cheaper and more stable fuel to the country’s power generation plants.

The Further Upgrading Project (FUP) was based on more comprehensive view of the future of petroleum product markets in order to maximize profits and ensure a stable market for the three refineries output. The project further sought to increase the share of light and medium products of the distillation process and minimize the share of fuel oil in the end output, resulting in a higher return from the crude oil refining processes. The refinery now contains 29 new units, in addition to the old units, including the crude distillation units, the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit, the Atmospheric Residue Desulphurization Units, the Vacuum Rerun Unit and the Sulphur Recovery unit. (Source : KNPC)