Egypt’s key planned 2019 downstream start up, the 81,500 b/d Egypt Refining Company (ERC) hydrocracker at Musturud, supplied almost 54,000 tons (15,000 b/d) of products to state oil firm EGPC in its first month of trial operations.
Cairo-based investment firm Qalaa Holdings, the project’s key backer, announced on 26 March that “ERC has supplied 36,873 tons of diesel, 5,800 tons of light naphtha and 9,115 tons of reformate (high octane gasoline) to EGPC since the start of ERC’s trail operations” on 26 February. “The trial operation of all the project units is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of this year,” Qalaa says. The ERC hydrocracker, which was built alongside EGPC’s ageing 100,000 b/d Cairo refinery whose residual fuel oil will provide the plant’s key feedstock, is central to Cairo’s aims of ending diesel and gasoline imports by 2022 (MEES, 1 March). (CONTINUED - 144 WORDS)