Oil refiners are increasing their efforts to blend renewable feedstocks such as used cooking oil into their crude refining streams to meet global demand for cleaner fuels.
As a result, demand for catalysts and additives to remove the impurities from bio-feedstock has risen, Maurits van Tol, chief executive of catalyst technologies provider Johnson Matthey, said on the sidelines of the India Energy Week conference.
"What we see is alternative feedstocks, the blending in of some components with biomass background at refineries in the last couple of years," he said.
Demand for catalysts and additives is also getting a boost from the widespread usage of cheaper heavy crude which harms the units because of their higher sulphur content, van Tol said.
PETROCHEMICALS
Refineries are also pivoting towards making more petrochemicals to offset lower transportation fuels demand from the growth of electric vehicles.
"The configuration of new age refineries will have more lighter products like gasoline and naphtha," said Vartika Shukla, chairperson of state-run Engineers India.
In India, Bharat Petroleum targets increasing its petrochemical output to more than 40% of its portfolio compared with about 2%-3% at present through its new refinery in Southern India, said Sanjay Khanna, the company's director of refineries.
The company plans to build a new refinery with a capacity of at least 180,000 barrels per day in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(Reuters, February 14, 2025)
