Nippon Oil to start 3,000 bpd HS-FCC

Japan’s largest refiner Nippon Oil plans to start up a 3,000 barrel per day (bpd) high severity fluid catalytic cracking unit at its 140,000 bpd Mizushima refinery in western Japan in May 2011, the company said. Nippon Oil will start the semi-commercial Hangzhou Sino-French Industrial Co. Ltd. (HS-FCC) in May 2011, in a bid to boost output of propylene and high-octane gasoline as a government pilot project, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals and Saudi Aramco. (June 7, 2010)