Butanes to Alkylate

There is a strong demand for high-octane value blend stock due to the following reasons: 

• Increasing availability of low-octane straight-run naphtha via tight oil production in North America
• Need for higher-efficiency engines to meet automotive standards such as the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)
• Anticipated decrease in gasoline pool octane-barrel due to governmental regulations on gasoline sulfur standards such as Tier III, China 6, Euro V. 

On the other hand, butanes prices are on the decline because of:

• Increase in shale gas production in North America
• Abundant natural gas liquid (NGL) reserves in the Middle East
• Need to remove butanes from the gasoline pool to comply with vapor pressure specifications (RVP).

These factors have resulted in strong economic incentives for on-purpose upgrading of butanes to alkylate. CB&I offers the only proven scheme to yield the highest alkylate quality (up to 98 RON) in the marketplace. CB&I’s state of the art value proposition combines two leading-edge, commercially-proven technologies, the CATOFIN® dehydrogenation process and the CDAlky® alkylation process. As a provider of both licensed technologies and EPC services, CB&I offers single point responsibility for the full project implementation solution, thus shortening the time to market which can lead to increase returns.