HIRC Project overview

Project Title : HIRC- Hybrid Industrial-waste

Recycling Complex

Registered Name : Green Spring Energy FZE

Owner : Innova Refining Holdings Limited

Location : Hamriyah Free zone, Phase # 1. Sharjah, UAE.

Investment Value of Refinery : AED 850,000,000

Processing capacity : 6,000m3/day

Primary Feedstock : Heavy Aromatics, Naphtha, Solvent Naphtha, Condensate,

ULO, HPO- Pyrolysis gasoline, opportunity / spot crude
oil, Mixed Glycols, Full range Kerosene, White Spirit,
Cutter Stock, PyGas, PFO.
Major Finished products : Gasoline Blend stocks, refined base oils, Gas-oils, BTX,
Benzene, Toluene, Xylene (mixed), Aromatic Solvents, EB
(Ethyl Benzene), MEG, DEG, TEG, mixed glycols and
Cutter-stock

Project Highlights

HIRC is an industrial plant with state-of-the-art technology adopting a vertical design for cost and real
estate saving. It processes hydrocarbon waste to produce finished goods for industry use adding
incredible value with huge environmental and societal benefits giving an enormous fillip to circular
economy.

HIRC’s oil valorisation project envisages a true and realizable convergence towards sustainable circular
economy. Mission of HIRC is to offtake the Hydrocarbon industrial wastes and semi-finished streams
out of Upstream, Refineries and petrochemicals industry. The premium products of the facility are
purified Glycols, Benzene, Toluene, Xylenes, Industrial C9-C10 solvents, purified Lube Base oils.

Design objectives of the facility is to process principally five (5) waste or semi- finished hydrocarbon
feed stocks to higher values. Essentially the complex is capable to produce more than 60% of its
products to circular reuse. Major feed streams to the processing facility are as below:

a. Semi-finished Pyrolysis oils /BTX, ex Petrochemical industry

b. Spent or used lubricant oils and engine oils
c. Contaminated single or multi component Glycols-
d. Tyre pyrolysis oils for reprocessing- a new feed stream
e. Hydrocarbon Condensates (surplus).

HIRC– KeyCharacteristics

Sustainability was key factor considered while Innova decided to invest on the HIRC. It is designed,
developed and constructed in an economically and environmentally responsible manner. The key
characteristics of this project, which also can be termed as company’s key competitive differentiators, are
listed below.

Zero-Waste.
The plant is designed and
constructed based on the
concept of ‘Zero-Waste’
generation. We, at Innova
believe that there is no waste in
petroleum and petrochemical
industry if you possess the right
technology. HIRC has
incorporated the use of
pollution control modules,
including wastewater treatment
plants and air emission controls
with no flaring from the
 chimneys (wet and dry zig zag scrubbers). Air emission parameters are monitored in real time
to ensure emission compliance at all times.

Flexibility in Feedstock selection.

Unlike the majority of petroleum and petrochemical companies that design their process with
selected product lines and feed stock in mind,
Innova, with the assistance of their technical
partners, is successful in incorporating all the
critical process available in the industry under
one roof. Module II of the plant has multiple
distillation columns and is designed to run on
continuous basis or batch basis and has
incorporated multiple receiving vessels. This
allows feedstock change in a very short time
(less than 4-6 hrs) unlike 1 to 2 weeks in other petrochemical plants.

This technology along with the inception of state-of-the-art R&D division gives Innova the
enormous flexibility of handling multiple feedstocks ranging from used oils, downgraded fuels,
AGO, VGO, solvents, Naphtha, condensate, PyGas, by-products from other petrochemical
plants etc. This ensures that the plant capacity utilization is not compromised due to shortage
of feedstock.

Optimum utilization of Resources:

Land: HIRC is designed and constructed in 46,000 Sqm area of land with its unique design of
positioning the vertical and horizontal intermediate tanks one on top of the other to ensure
maximum space utilization.

Location:

HIRC project is ideally located near the

port in HAFZA.

• Phase #1, HFZA - Sharjah.

• Port facility with 7 mtr drafts.
• Close proximity to Jebel Ali, RAK and
Fujairah ports.
• Easy Access to Major highways like
E311 that connect the
emirates.

Energy: Energy is the second major cost in most of the heavy industries. Innova has incorporated many
features in their process for energy conservation, for example, Economizers have incorporated for
recovering waste heat, Stimulators or agitators have been incorporated to reduce process time of de-
hydration and there by reduction in energy consumption.

Fuel: CNG will be used as fuel for the plant utilities in place conventional fuels like gas oil. CNG fuel is
known for its environment friendly characteristics and low cost.
 Design objectives
HIRC facility are to process principally five (5) waste or semi- finished hydrocarbon feed
stocks targeting higher values. Essentially the complex is capable to produce more than 60%
of its products to circular reuse. Major feed streams to the processing facility are as below
1. Semi-finished Hy Pyrolysis oils /BTX, ex Petrochemical industry.
2. Spent or used lubricant oils and engine oils
3. Contaminated single or multi component Glycols-
4. Tyre pyrolysis oils for reprocessing- a new feed stream
5. Hydrocarbon Condensates (surplus).

HIRC – Process / Plant Capacity

HIRC project holds the capacity of 2000 MT capacity per day with multiple products. Module 1 caters
two large volume processing capacity at a time. The control tower is monitored by SCADA and highly
automated with minimum manpower. The gantry is set to offload 6 Trucks at a time and the spot
testing of samples taken on any point of time to understand the material composition. The plant can
be operated in 3 shifts and is equipped with fully equipped fire and safety systems.

MODULE BATC PROCESS VO VOL

I QTY BATCHES L
H DURATION PER
VESSELS - PER DAY PER
SIZE - HRS MONTH
PCS DA
CBM CBM
Y
CBM
DISTILLATION
Distillation# D1-1 (120 kl) 1 12 12 2.0 240 7,20
0 0
Distillation# D1-2 (120 kl) 1 12 12 2.0 240 7,20
0 0
Distillation# D1-3 (160 kl) with column 1 16 13 1.8 295 8,86
0 2
Distillation# D1-4 (160 kl) with column 1 16 13 1.8 295 8,86
0 2
Total Distillation Capacity of Module 1
32,12
3
OTHER PROCESS
Extraction vessels 50 kl 9
Strippers 100 kl 4
Solvent crackers 50 kl 4
Dehydration vessels 100 kl 4
Demetalizers 100 kl 4
 BATCH PROCESS VOL
QTY SIZE DURATION BATCHES VOL PER PER
MODULE II
- CBM - HRS PER DAY DAY MONTH
PCS CBM CBM
DISTILLATION
Distillation# D2-1 (125 kl) 1 100 10 2.0 200 6,000
Distillation# D2-2 (125 kl) 1 100 10 2.0 200 6,000
Distillation# D2-3 (125 kl) 1 100 10 2.0 200 6,000
Distillation# D2-4 (125 kl) 1 100 10 2.0 200 6,000
Distillation# D2-5 (125 kl) 1 100 10 2.0 200 6,000
Distillation# D2-6 (125 kl) 1 100 10 2.0 200 6,000
Total Distillation Capacity of Module II 36,00
0
OTHER PROCESS
LLE (Liquid Liquid Extraction) unit 50 kl 4
WFE (Wet Film Evaporators) unit 50 kl 1

UTILITY REMARK
S
Steam Boilers 10 T capacity @ 10 bar 2
Thermic Fluid Heaters 2 mkcl 16
Chillers 58
Cooling Towers 16
Nitrogen Generators 2
Power Gensets 1.5 MW 8
DAF 200 cbl per day 1
RO Plant 200 cbl per day 1

Terminal Facility

HIRC’s terminal capacity in the project location is 56000 CBM with 23 bulk Storage tanks. SRS Middle
East FZE (20% Shareholding) subsidiary of Innova Holdings also have association for storage of 110,000
cbm storage facility and is ideally located near the inner harbour. This facility will help HIRC to store
the feedstock and finished goods for 30 days. Apart from this facilities HIRC holds contracts with third
party locations within 4 km radius and positioned near the port and will support the terminal with
additional 72,000 cbm storage facility. This facilities makes the unit more sustainable in terms of
handling various finished products and feedstock.

HIRC- SRS PROJECT DESCRIPTION DISTANCE Draft REMARKS

HIRC Inner harbour 700 mtr 4-7 Piple line connected
HIRC Main harbour 5.5 km 12.5 No pipeline
PORT & PIPELINE
HIRC SRS 5.7 km No pipeline
DETAILS SRS Main harbour 780 mtr 12.5 Piple line connected
SRS Inner harbour 800 mtr 4-7 Piple line connected

Feed Component 1: BTX and Pyrolysis oils.

Aromatics recovery and purification to B, T and X components

The steps needed for the process objectives with this type of feeds might essentially involve a
physical solvent extraction process to extract out the aromatics components. The physical solvent
considered here could be either NMP, (N-Methyl 2 Pyrolidone), DMSO (Dimethyl
Sulfoxide) or Sulfolane; all that exhibit clear affinity towards Aromatics such as Benzene, Toluene,
and Xylenes etc.
Combined upfront capacities of the Extraction section:
1. 3 nos x 5 M3 kettles = 15M3-
Group 1 dedicated for Spent
lubes
2. 3 nos x 5 M3 kettles = 15M3-
Group 2 dedicated for BTX
streams
3. 3 nos x 5 M3 kettles = 15M3-
Group 3 dedicated for BTX
streams

Total extraction capacity= 45M3 per

batch, every 6 hours’ time
Total extraction capacity= 180 M3 per batch, every 24 hours’ time
1. Strippers= 4 x 10 M3 – 40 M3 per batch every 4 hours’ time Total
stripping capacity= 240 M3 per day
2. Solvent distillers= 4 x 10 M3– 40 M3 per batch every 4 hours’ time Total
solvent distilling capacity= 240 M3 per day
Daily upfront combined process capacity would reach closer to 2000 M3 per day.
The extraction is done in 9 batch extraction kettles arranged in 3 groups each with 3 kettles to
produce 2 components initially, the extract and raffinate. The extract portion would further be distilled
to push out the solvent in Solvent Distilling section 4 nos. and thus the solvent is used for recycling
within the process. The resultant product here is called Aromatics. Aromatics is a broad term to
include, Benzene, Toluene and Xylenes together. This units next stream called raffinate portion that
would have traces to nil non-Aromatics or broadly termed as paraffin.

This second stream in extraction step called as raffinate portion would also have solvent portion but
removed and recovered through solvent stripping. Further the aromatics free raffinate portion are
stripped of the solvent portion. The resultant product is pure Base oil
group-I. Future provision is there to add a Hydro treater to upgrade such cuts to Group-II base oils.

The pure Aromatics stream is directly sold as rich BTX stream or still split into individual B, T and X
components through multi tray distillation steps. In a single distiller with many trays, the benzene
purity as top cut is expected is almost >95% purity and bottoms would have two components for
splitting. Hence the Benzene column bottoms would further be distilled in Toluene column to take
out Toluene as top product while bottoms removed as Mixed Xylenes.

Feed Component 2: Used Engine oils and Spent Turbine lubes

Base oils and some fuel blending streams. Waste engine oils or turbine spent lubes were hitherto
being used part as burning fuels, and part reused. This stream is set to undergo several upgrade
routes, viz. metal removals through De-metallization 1100, dirt removal through Micro-filtration,
water removal through Dehydration 1200, cracked or light components removal through Stripping
and separate boiling range products through Vacuum distillation steps in 1300 units.

The plant installed minimum capacities of module-1 is as below

1. De-metallizer kettles 4 four nos.- 4 x 10M3 each=40M3/per batch of 4 hours

2. Dehydration kettles 4 four nos.- 4 x 10M3 each=40M3/ per batch of 4 hours
3. Four (4) distillers of two (2) types for batch distilling the below upfront capacities.
a. Distillation capacities of 2 x30M3= 60M3/ per batch of 6 hours- Py-Gas
b. Distillation capacities of 2 x30M3= 60M3/ per batch of 6 hours UEO.
One batch distillation would take 6-8 hours and hence total combined capacity of 4 distillers is
720M3/D. All these above 3 processes should work in series basis to bring plant on line.
4. There are (4) thermo-cracking kettles installed to run on need basis to crack VDU bottoms to
lower viscosity and increase yield of distillates. At the same time, the same facility also does
the deep vacuum distillation of Extract to take out Solvents.
The special cuts out of these purification and distillation steps, viz heart cut Lube stocks are still
required to undergo extractive purification steps for aromatics removal through solvent
extraction. This is true in the case of BTX feed case as well. The pure raffinates that matches with
pure base oil quality are sent to storage.

Feed Component 3:

Tyre Pyrolysis oils/Condensates

Tyre Pyrolysis oils are a recent
addition to the Recycle, Reuse
industry. The feed stream could co-
process with a stabilized
condensates through the spare
distillation capacities in the unit
1300, and could fill the capacity. This feeds would have cracked Naphtha, Kerosene boiling range
stream, Diesel range fractions and residue fractions worthy enough for possible blending as well as
fuel needs. These niche processing options fit well to our overall processing hardware complex.

Feed Component 4: Contaminated Glycols

Spent Glycol solvents reprocessing also were fragmented in different localities of ME region. Innova
has found this spent glycol purification as an option with very high economic incentives. Spent Mono
Ethylene Glycols, Diethylene Glycols, Tri-ethylene Glycols etc are all considered here for purification.

Glycols would have issues of water, dirt, metals, salts degradation products, color, oil contamination
etc. A purification step essentially required a distiller with below steps
1. Micro Filtration to remove dirt.
2. Regenerative refluxed vacuum distillation under steady reboiler temperature, to remove
water at column overheads
3. Oily and dissolved gases removal from regenerator
4. Minor oil removal through Carbon cartridge filtration.
5. Heavy metals removed through filtration steps. Capacities of below refluxed Vacuum
distillers in Module-1 can be used.
 6. 2 x 30 M3 of refluxed Distillation columns at vacuum=60M3/batch. These refluxed
distillation equipment system is fully SS316 metallurgy.

Module-2 Facility.

There are six (6) high capacity

distillation towers of which two (2) are
superior SS metallurgy. All these
towers can easily perform purification
under in vacuum, all supported with
steam ejectors.
Capacities of Vacuum
distillers in Module-2
2 x 90 M3 of refluxed Distillation columns at vacuum=180M3/batch
Capacities of Multi fraction distillers at Module-2
4 x 90 M3 of refluxed Distillation columns at vacuum=360M3/batch
Due to six (6) distillers in a row, Full range Aromatics and poly Glycols also can be individually
concentrated in one or two towers.

Pilot Plants

The unique feature of HIRC is that the whole processes could

be pilot tested in three pilot plants. Except solvent extraction
and steam distillation, the facility could be used as training,
research, academic and industrial researches. The Treatment
unit could simulate, Demetalization unit and Dehydration and
Filtration of Used Engine Oils. In Distillation tower-1 has 15
theoretical plates equivalent structured packing with 3
component splitting possible.
With Distillation -2, HIRC could test simulate factional distillation of any sort of pilot, feasibility study
and academic research purposes. The processes are supported by draw temperature
indicators in digital format. Individual cuts draws are facilitated by Pneumatic draw of control valves
that work on ON-OFF basis

List ofValorisation Units

Modul Unit No Process objective Nos. Total Remarks

e kettles/Columns Proces
s Capacity M3
1 K-1100 De-metalation 4 300 Pre-treating feeds

1 K-1200 Dehydration 4 300 Pre-treatig feeds

1 K-1300 Distillation 4 480 General –low pressure

1 K-1301/2 Solvent Distillation 2 240 Feed extract phase +HC

1 K-1303/4 & Col. Glycols distillation 2 240 (SS Metallurgy), Glycol +HC

1 K1400-G1(3) BTX extraction 3 96 Spent Lube oils

1 K1400-G2(3) BTX extraction 3 96 Spent Lube oils

1 K1400-G2(3) BTX extraction 3 96 Hy Aromatics & C6+Pyrolysis

oils
1 K1500 Hy Aromatics split 4 36 Thermal cracking Hy
Aromatics
1 K1600 Raffinate stripper 4 280 Strips Base oil off Solvent

2 K2101 & Glycols distillation 1 85 Glycols distill-series/parallel

Column
2 K2102 & Glycols distillation 1 85 Glycols distill-series/parallel
Column
2 K2201 & General distillation 1 85 General, low pressure distil
Column
2 K2301 & General distillation 1 85 General, low pressure distil
Column
2 K2401 & General distillation 1 85 General, low pressure distil
Column

Role of Oil valorisation

Section-1-Module-1
o Extraction Units
o Raffinate Stripping Units
Section-2 Module-1
o Distillation Units
o Vacuum Dehydration/Distillation Units
Section-3 Module-1
 o De-metallization Units
o Dehydration Units
Section-4 Module-1
o Cracking Units
Section-5-Module-2
o Full range Oil Fractionation Units
Section-6- Module-2
o LLE(Liquid-Liquid Extraction) extraction Units
Section-7- Module-2
o Glycol Purification Units
o Utilities
Section-6
o Offsite facilities

Based on the processing needs, HIRC facility can handle a variety of feedstocks for the purposes of
purification and value addition through circular economy principles

A. Purification through Extraction Stripping Process

1. Full range Pyrolysis Gasoline
2. Raw Hy. Aromatics –BTX-streams
3. Commercial grade Pyrolysis Fuel Oils
4. Spent Lubricant oils or used engine oils
5. Semi-Processed Lubricants
B. Purification through Distillation Process
1. Contaminated Opportunity Crudes
2. Commercial Raw Kerosene
3. Cracked Tyre oils
4. Full range Saturated Diesel
5. Full range Naphtha
6. Condensates
 7. Low Viscosity Cutter stocks
C. Purification through Distillation & Treatment Processes
1. Contaminated Glycols
2. Contaminated Mixed Glycols
3. Contaminated Mixed Alcohols
4. Esterification Reaction for Ethanol/Butanol 5.