The Catalyst Review July 2020 - 13

SPECIAL FEATURE
Merchant Alkylation Facilities
Innovation and economics are driving new merchant alkylation capacity construction. In late 2019, Next Wave Energy Partners, LP
announced the final investment decision to construct a new alkylation production facility, known as Project Traveler.27 This facility
is a standalone operation and is not associated with a refinery or petrochemical plant. The economics driving the new facility are
increasing demand for clean alkylate and abundant ethylene supplies from shale oil production. The new alkylation facility is a first
of its kind. It will be located at the Houston Ship Channel and have access to multiple pipelines for feedstock delivery. Likewise,
proximate pipelines will transport final alkylate products to blending terminals.
The new alkylation unit will have a nameplate capacity of 28 Mbpd of alkylate. Plant design involves McDermott Lummus CB&I and
DuPont Clean Technologies licensed processes. McDermott's Dimer process will convert ethylene into high-purity 2-butene feedstock
that is sent to DuPont's STRATCO alkylation unit. Both are existing technologies but are combined in a most unique manner. In this
processing configuration, the alkylation unit will have a pure-component feed that supports high-octane (98 RON) alkylate product
with low (3.5) RVP. Production should begin by mid-2022. Next Wave Energy has secured long-term contracts for most of the
facility's output.
Summary
Alkylate is a high-octane (RON) product and a critical component in clean gasoline blending. It solves the problems of low-sulfur, lowaromatic blending components and provides more flexibility in refining operations. Refiners have many options in operating primary
conversion units and balancing the total cost against volume yields (output). The demand and quality of alkylate will increase and
later-model vehicles require higher octane (RON) fuels to operate efficiently.
Accordingly, refiners will investigate various options to optimize alkylation production. Many factors are involved in the selection of
alkylation processes and catalyst systems. Safety and environmental concerns and operating risks are critical factors in technology
selection. Growing environmental concerns to ban HF and limit SA usage have increased scrutiny on existing alkylation operations.
New alkylation catalysts will be part of the solutions to provide cleaner fuels. Likewise, updating or converting existing alkylation
units to yield higher octane (RON) product is an ongoing process. Innovative processing developments and catalysts will be used to
revamp existing HF and SA alkylation units at lower expense than grassroots replacements.
References

1 ExxonMobil. (2019). "2019 Outlook for Energy." https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Energy-and-environment/Looking-forward/Outlookfor-Energy.
2 Tamm DC, Devenish GN, et al. (2018). "Analysis of Gasoline Octane Costs." https://www.eia.gov/analysis/octanestudy/pdf/phase1.pdf
3 US Energy Information Administration. (2018). "Analysis of octane cost." https://www.eia.gov/analysis/octanestudy/
4 Stratas Advisors. (2019). "Global Octane Market Continues to Be Dominated by Regular Gasoline Grades." https://stratasadvisors.com/
Insights/111716-Global-Octane
5 Truett R. (2018). "The Octane Game: Auto Industries Lobbies for 95 as New Regular." https://www.autonews.com/article/20180417/
BLOG06/180419780/the-octane-game-auto-industry-lobbies-for-95-as-new-regular
6 Gattupalli R, Tertel JA, Weber D, et al, "The journey to sustained profitability: ISOALKY™ Process Technology, a new era for alkylation with
ionic liquid alkylation," 2020 AFPM Annual Meeting, March 2020, https://www2.afpm.org/forms/store/ProductFormPublic/
7 CB&I, "Successful operation of first AlkyClean solid-acid alkylation unit", AIChE Lecture Dinner meeting, June 29, 2017, http://www.aiche.
nl/images/presentations/2017-6-29-ldm.pdf.
8 Ye E, and Higgins T, "Gasoline production in the age of shale oil, renewable fuel mandates, and Tier 3 regulations, "AFPM Annual Meeting,
AM-14-36, Orlando, Florida, March 23-25, 2014, https://www2.afpm.org/forms/store/ProductFormPublic/.
9 U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Alkylation is an important source for octane in gasoline," February 13, 2013, https://www.eia.
gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=9971
10 AFPM, "United States Refining and Storage Capacity," August 2019, https://www.afpm.org/system/files/attachments/AFPM-CapacityReport-2019.pdf
11 Stratas Advisors, "North America alkylate outlook," February 2019, https://stratasadvisors.com/Insights/2019/021419-North-AmericaAlkylate-Outlook.
12 The Catalyst Group Resources, "The intelligence Report 2017-2023," 2017.

The Catalyst Review

July 2020

https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Energy-and-environment/Looking-forward/Outlook-for-Energy https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Energy-and-environment/Looking-forward/Outlook-for-Energy https://www.eia.gov/analysis/octanestudy/pdf/phase1.pdf https://www.eia.gov/analysis/octanestudy/ https://stratasadvisors.com/Insights/111716-Global-Octane https://stratasadvisors.com/Insights/111716-Global-Octane https://www.autonews.com/article/20180417/BLOG06/180419780/the-octane-game-auto-industry-lobbies-for-95-as-new-regular https://www.autonews.com/article/20180417/BLOG06/180419780/the-octane-game-auto-industry-lobbies-for-95-as-new-regular https://www2.afpm.org/forms/store/ProductFormPublic/ http://www.aiche.nl/images/presentations/2017-6-29-ldm.pdf http://www.aiche.nl/images/presentations/2017-6-29-ldm.pdf https://www2.afpm.org/forms/store/ProductFormPublic/ https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=9971 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=9971 https://www.afpm.org/system/files/attachments/AFPM-Capacity-Report-2019.pdf https://www.afpm.org/system/files/attachments/AFPM-Capacity-Report-2019.pdf https://stratasadvisors.com/Insights/2019/021419-North-America-Alkylate-Outlook https://stratasadvisors.com/Insights/2019/021419-North-America-Alkylate-Outlook

The Catalyst Review July 2020

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