Attock Refinery puts refinery expansion plans on hold

Pakistan’s Attock Refinery Ltd. (AR) put on hold expansion plans for its sole 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery at Rawalpindi in the northern part of the country because of the economic downturn. Though the facility’s front-end engineering design (FEED) is complete, economic difficulties have made the company temporarily shelve the project. The plans to expand the refinery’s crude processing capacity, AR said, are also dependent on crude supply in the market. The refiner had planned to spend US$18 million to raise the crude processing capacity of the refinery by 12,400 bpd. It also has planned to add a new US$57 million, 7,000 bpd isomerization unit to increase the octane level and cut benzene and aromatics in gasoline, and a new 12,500 bpd diesel hydro-desulfurization unit. (March 31, 2009)