The Ruwais General Utilities Plant has an installed base of four GE 13E2 units that can generate up to 650 MW of electricity, all used for the refinery’s production process.
Planning and executing such an upgrade typically takes up to 18 months, but GE’s team of engineers managed to complete the project within just six months. “At GE, we are committed to supporting our customers power through every challenge and we’re honored to collaborate with ADNOC Refining on this project,” said Joseph Anis, President & CEO of GE Gas Power in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
Ruwais Refinery, managed by ADNOC’s refining arm Takeer, is the largest oil refinery in the UAE with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) – more than twice the size of ADNOC’s Jebel Ali refinery. The refinery supplies a diversified range of petroleum products -- LPG, naphtha, gasoline, jet fuel, gas oil and base oils, fuel oil, petrochemical feedstock and propylene -- to its customers that are mostly based in Asia.
MXL2 upgrade raises GT efficiency by 1.5%
Energy-intensive industries, such as refining, need to ensure a stable supply of competitively priced electricity. Hence, refining companies often choose to build onsite power stations to ensure continuous operation of the refinery’s fracking towers. The GE chief executive singled out upgrade solutions as “an effective and affordable means” to increase power output and lower emissions per megawatt generated.
The MXL2 upgrade enhances allows operators of GT13E2 gas turbines to achieve up to a 1.5 percent increase in combined cycle efficiency and extend inspection intervals up to 48,000 equivalent operating hours (EOH). The upgrade combines GE’s latest technology developments, and over 10 million operating hours of GT13E2 fleet experience.
The retrofit and upgrade of ADNOC’s General Utilities Plant at Ruwais comes after similar upgrades were carried out in recent years on two other gas turbines at the same plant.