ENV-07-100 Report on Initial Operation of the World's First FCCU Application of the LOTOX Technology at a Texas Refinery

Description:

Wet scrubbing based NOx control had been successfully applied to various industries for several years. Refineries, however, had not used such an approach until Belco Technologies Corporation (BELCO®) introduced it to the refining industry in 2003. At that time BELCO® acquired a license from the BOC Group to supply the LoTOx™ technology to refineries worldwide. Since that time three refineries have purchased BELCO’s EDV® wet scrubbing systems with LoTOx technology and two refineries purchased LoTOx technology to add to their existing EDV wet scrubbing systems. All five of these systems are applied to Fluid Catalytic Converter Units (FCCU). The first of the LoTOx systems started up operation during February of 2007 at Marathon’s Texas City, Texas, refinery. In the fall of 2002, Marathon conducted a review of several options to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) from its 52,000 barrels per day FCCU. The LoTOx technology was identified as a potential NOx control technology. Unfortunately, the LoTOx technology had never been used on an FCCU. Marathon needed more assurance that applying it to an FCCU would result in similar performance to that experienced in the other application. To that end, Marathon, BOC and BELCO conducted a demonstration of BELCO’s EDV wet scrubbing system with LoTOx technology. The demonstration was conducted October through November 2002. Following review of the results, BELCO finalized its proposal to Marathon for the system and eventually concluded negotiations for the design and supply of the system for the Texas City refinery. This commercial system successfully started operating in February 2007, achieving all established goals and confirming the results of the demonstration.