Queensland Clean Fuels

Client: BP Refinery (Bulwer Island) Ltd.

Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Business Segment: Energy Solutions

Industry: Fuels

Services: ProcurementEngineering and Design

Map showing the location of Queensland Clean Fuels

Executive Summary

Fluor was one of several companies forming a unique alliance with BP, enabling us to play a part in the Southeast Queensland Regional Air Quality Strategy.

We provided the conceptual design and worked in alliance with the licensee and BP on the front-end engineering for the hydrocracker for the project. The hydrocracker added hydrogen to heavier hydrocarbons to break the long organic chemical chains into the shorter chains of the transport fuels, separating out the sulfur impurities in the process. A hydrogen generation unit, an air separation unit and a cogeneration unit were also installed. Modifications were made to the vacuum distillation, amine treating, sulfur recovery, existing crude distillation and residue cracking units. Sulfur removed at the refinery was recycled as a raw material for other industries.

Client's Challenge

Southeast Queensland's population was growing at double the national average, and Brisbane had greater potential than any other Australian city of producing environmentally detrimental emissions in the 1990s.

As part of its worldwide “Clean Cities” program, BP chose Brisbane as one of the 40 initial cities to produce clean fuels. The Bulwer Island Refinery expansion and Clean Fuels Project were to produce fuels with low sulfur content.

Low-sulfur fuel helps improve local air quality by reducing diesel-fueled vehicles' exhaust smoke, sulfur dioxide emissions and odors. The project included the installation of the first hydrocracker in Australia.

Fluor's Solution

As part of the project alliance, Fluor called on the expertise and experience of our experts in Calgary, Canada, who had completed many similar hydrocrackers.

The alliance proved to be a great success. The parties worked together to modularize the construction and made plans early in the project for shipping and heavy lifting of the modules, installation and commissioning. Our offices in Melbourne and New Delhi assisted with the design of the hydrocracker.