BIPL commissions isomerisation plant

KARACHI: Byco Petroleum Pakistan has notified the bourse that its subsidiary Byco Isomerisation Pakistan Private Limited (BIPL) has commissioned the country’s largest isomerisation plant, taking its total premium motor gasoline production capacity to 1.25 million tons/annum.

“Byco has employed a superior technology with exceptionally higher capacity of 12,500 barrels per day (bpd), which produces higher octane values component of motor gasoline,” the notice said on Monday. Byco produces 40,000 tons/month motor gasoline, which would be increased to 65,000 tons/month.

The plant would not only have a positive impact on the refinery’s profitability, but also reduce petrol imports with consequential savings in foreign exchange. BIPL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Byco Petroleum, is principally engaged in blending, refining, and processing of petroleum naphtha to produce petroleum products such as premium motor gasoline.

Pakistan’s current consumption of refined petroleum products stands at 27 million tons per year, while the local refineries are currently producing around 10.8 million tons. Pakistan imported petroleum products worth $800 million in May 2018.

Byco is Pakistan's largest refining complex with a combined crude processing facility of 155,000bpd. Commissioning of the isomerisation unit as part of reconstructing and upgrading, Byco refineries will allow the company to better manage refinery margins for the product lines, going forward.

Isomerisation unit converts and upgrade Naphtha into environmentally friendly benzene free gasoline with reduced sulphur and aromatic contents. Gasoline obtained from isomerisation serves as a substitution for imports, and greatly offsets the necessity of unnecessarily expensive imported motor gasoline.

Currently, there are six oil refineries operating in the country, including Pak-Arab Refinery Co Ltd (Parco) of 100,000bpd, National Refinery Ltd (NRL) of 64,000bpd, Pakistan Refinery Ltd (PRL) of 47,000bpd, Attock Refinery Ltd (ARL) of 43,000bpd (1.9MTPA), Byco Refineries of 155,000bpd output capacity. All these refineries have employed isomerisation technology.