Executives say oil refiners are adding renewable feedstocks to produce cleaner fuels.
To meet the global demand for cleaner fuels, oil refiners are increasing efforts to blend in renewable feedstocks like used cooking oils into their crude refining streams.
Maurits Van Tol, Chief Executive of Johnson Matthey, a provider of catalyst technologies, stated that the demand for additives and catalysts to remove impurities from feedstocks has increased.
He said that in recent years, refineries have been blending some components into biomass feedstocks.
Van Tol added that the demand for additives and catalysts has also been boosted by the use of heavy crude oil, which is cheaper but can damage the units due to its higher sulphur level.
PETROCHEMICALS
The refineries also make more petrochemicals in order to compensate for the lower demand of transportation fuels due to the increase in electric vehicles.
Vartika Shukla is the chairperson of Engineers India, a state-owned company. She said that "the configuration of new-age refineries will be more lighter products such as gasoline and naphtha".
Bharat Petroleum's new refinery in Southern India will increase its petrochemical production to over 40%, compared to the current 2%-3%, according Sanjay Khanna.
The company intends to build a refinery in Andhra Pradesh with a minimum capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day. (Reporting and editing by Florence Tan, Christian Schmollinger and Sethuraman N.)
(source: Reuters)
