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.
The CATOFIN® technology is a unique process for the production of olefins, such as propylene (from propane) and iso-butylene (from iso-butane).
The CDAlky® catalytic alkylation technology is an advanced low-temperature sulfuric acid alkylation process for the production of motor fuel alkylate.