Libya’s NOC on 12 May announced the restart of the steam cracker at the Ras Lanuf industrial complex 550km east of Tripoli. This marks the first operations at Ras Lanuf since 2013, when the complex’s centerpiece 220,000 b/d Ras Lanuf refinery was shuttered due to drawn out legal disputes between NOC and the plant’s erstwhile 50% owners, Emirati firm Trasta Energy. NOC agreed to buy out Trasta as part of a resolution last February (MEES, 4 March,).
The plant processes naphtha feedstock, of which Libya produces a surplus, with the key output of ethylene then supplying an adjacent polyethylene plant. In the absence of the restart of the refinery itself, the complex has taken delivery of naphtha feedstock from Libya’s operational refineries, seemingly for test-runs ahead of a restart: a 128,000-barrel naphtha cargo from the Tobruk refinery in September 2021 and a similar 116,000-barrel cargo from the country’s largest operating refinery, Zawiya, west of Tripoli, in August 2022. (CONTINUED - 388 WORDS)
