Back to Services

Solaxis Service

Refinery

Solaxis does not have own refineries at the moment but our trusted partners do and are able to share their skills, expertise and cooperation with us in designing and building refineries for governments in Africa as part of our African trade agreements.

What We Offer

Refinery Design & Building

Partner with governments in Africa to design and build refineries as part of trade agreements.

Hi-Tech Process Control

Latest electronic technology to monitor and control plants 24/7 with computer-driven systems.

Government Approvals

Assist partners with government approvals, land allocations, and bank loans or guarantees.

Quality Control

Modern laboratory testing for quality assurance on all finished products.

Win-Win Partnerships

Solaxis helps our trusted partners get the government approvals, land allocations, and bank loans or funds from government bank guarantees to realise the refinery projects — and it is always a win-win for both sides.

Hi-Tech Process Control

Using the latest electronic technology to monitor and control the plants, operators run the process units 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

From control rooms located in each Operations area, operators use a computer-driven process control system with console screens that display color interactive graphics of the plants and real-time data on the status of the plants.

The process control system allows operators to "fine-tune" the processes and respond immediately to process changes. With redundancy designed into the control system, safe operations are assured in the event of plant upset.

Refining's Basic Steps

Most refineries, regardless of complexity, perform these basic steps: Distillation, Cracking, Treating, and Reforming.

1

Distillation

Modern distillation involves pumping oil through pipes in hot furnaces and separating light hydrocarbon molecules from heavy ones in downstream distillation towers.

Lightest materials (propane, butane) rise to the top
Medium weight materials (gasoline, jet, diesel) condense in the middle
Heavy materials (gas oils) condense in the lower portion
Heaviest material (residuum) stays at the bottom
2

Cracking

Convert middle distillate, gas oil and residuum into primarily gasoline, jet and diesel fuels by literally 'cracking' large, heavy molecules into smaller, lighter ones.

Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) - 86,000 barrels/day
Hydrocracking (Isomax) - 58,000 barrels/day
Delayed Coking - 98,000 barrels/day
Alkylation - recombines 14,800 barrels/day
3

Treating

Remove natural impurities such as sulfur and nitrogen using hydrotreating to reduce air pollution when fuels are used.

RDS Unit with six 1,000-ton reactors
Sulfur converted to hydrogen sulfide
Nitrogen transformed into ammonia for fertilizer
Produces low sulfur vacuum gas oil
4

Reforming

Boost octane levels using precious-metal catalysts (platinum and rhenium) to reform hydrocarbon molecules into high octane gasoline components.

Three catalytic reformers in operation
Process 71,000 barrels (3 million gallons) per day
Hydrogen produced for other units
High octane gasoline production

Blending

A final and critical step is the blending of products. Gasoline, for example, is blended from treated components made in several processing units. Operators precisely combine these to ensure the blend has the right octane level, vapor pressure rating and other important specifications.

Quality Control

In the refinery's modernly-equipped Laboratory, chemists and technicians conduct quality assurance tests on all finished products, including checking gasoline for proper octane rating. Performance boosters are added to gasoline for optimal results.

Partner Refineries

Our partners in Poland and other regions operate advanced refineries that convert crude oil into high-value products.

The Coker typically produces more than 6,000 tons a day of petroleum coke, which is sold for use as fuel or in cement manufacturing.