KBR And SK Corporation To Commercialize And Market New Catalytic Process For Olefins Production From Paraffinic Feeds
Houston - KBR, the engineering, construction and services subsidiary of Halliburton, announced it has reached an agreement with Korea's SK Corporation regarding the development, commercialization, marketing and licensing of a new technology for olefins production, named Advanced Catalytic Olefin (ACO) Process. The ACO Process uses a proprietary process concept and catalyst developed by SK Corporation that gives higher overall olefins yields compared to conventional steam crackers, with an ethylene to propylene ratio of approximately one. Plans are under way to install the ACO process in an existing olefins plant at an SK site, with KBR providing the design package.
"SK Corporation has an excellent proprietary process and catalyst technologies, and we are pleased to be working with them," said Tim Challand, KBR's senior vice president of Downstream and Technology. "KBR's collaboration with SK Corporation will provide a superior technology for producers to make two of the world's most widely used petrochemicals, propylene and ethylene, from common and readily available feeds such as straight run naphthas and distillates. Additionally, the ACO process complements KBR's current olefins technology, expertise in catalytic converter design and scale-up experience to rapid commercialization."
Challand added that KBR olefins are used in a large percentage of today's petrochemical complexes. Another catalytic olefins process used for the production of ethylene and propylene from higher olefinic streams, SUPERFLEXSM, is in the process of commercialization. Both SUPERFLEX and ACO technologies are exclusively licensed worldwide by KBR.
"SK Corporation is also pleased to be working with KBR, which has an excellent track record in commercializing technologies," added W. S. Kim, senior vice president, SK Corporation. "SK Corporation has invested significant efforts to develop very robust and promising technologies for proprietary processes and catalysts. Technologies such as ATA, APU and EnCPF have been globally commercialized with outstanding performance. Once the catalyst and process of the ACO are commercially demonstrated, new opportunities will be created for additional olefins production with a greater emphasis on propylene production."
SOURCE: Halliburton