Alexandria Minerals Oil Company (Amoc), operator of a 35,000 b/d upgrader refinery in Alexandria is considering investing $500mn in a new hydrocracker to eliminate residual fuel oil production in favor of higher value middle distillates.

This chimes with Cairo’s fuel oil reduction drive, the key element of which is the privately-owned Egyptian Refinery Company’s (ERC’s) under-construction $3.7bn hydrocracker-based plant, which will upgrade residual fuel oil from the nearby Cairo refinery and is slated for 2018 start-up. Project lead Qalaa Holdings, in its latest annual report published last month, says that as of May the plant was “more than 94% complete” and that “we look forward to mechanical completion of ERC before the end of this year and the delivery of first on-spec product for 2018.” (CONTINUED - 776 WORDS)