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Bahrain’s state-owned Bapco Energies is in the final stages of ramping up volumes processed by new units that were installed as part of the Bapco Modernisation Programme (BMP), according to industry sources.

The project at the Sitra refinery in Bahrain is estimated to have been worth $7bn and was inaugurated by Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa in December last year.

One source said: “The new units still aren’t operating at their nameplate capacities – but it’s getting close.”

The companies involved in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project are still working on the site to assist with efforts to increase volumes, according to sources.

“The companies involved in the EPC work have to meet certain targets before their work is done,” said one source.

“They have to get the process volumes to a certain level and then maintain that for a certain time period before they can say that they have fully met their contractual obligations.”

The inauguration ceremony for the BMP took place on 18 December last year. Along with King Hamad, the ceremony was attended by Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s crown prince and prime minister, Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, chairman of the board of directors of Bapco Energies, the leadership team at Bapco Energies, and other senior executives from the oil and gas industry.

The BMP is central to Bahrain’s Vision 2030 economic development strategy, and Bapco has said that it is crucial to boosting the country’s long-term downstream potential.

Bapco Energies awarded the main $4.2bn contract to perform EPC works on the BMP to a consortium led by France’s Technip Energies in February 2018.

The consortium also included Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas and South Korea’s Samsung E&A.

Technip Energies also performed the project’s front-end engineering and design work. US oil and gas producer Chevron acted as a consultant on the BMP, while Australia-based Worley was the project management consultant.

In March 2024, after a series of setbacks and delays, France’s Total Energies was brought in to support Bapco in “optimising” the project.

The BMP was originally expected to reach mechanical completion in 2023, with operations set to begin in 2024.

The core objective of the BMP was to upgrade the Sitra refinery – Bahrain’s only oil refining asset – which is 90 years old.

One of the key units to be built as part of the BMP was a residual hydrocracking unit (RHCU) powered by technology licensed from US-based Chevron Lummus Global. The BMP team has built a two-train RHCU with a capacity of 65,000 barrels a day.

The Sitra refinery includes seven crude distillation units (CDUs) and vacuum distillation units (VDUs) as part of the BMP.

The new 225,000 b/d integrated crude and vacuum unit replaced CDUs 1, 2 and 3 and VDUs 1 and 3, which had served Bapco Energies for over 80 years.

Key units installed at the Sitra refinery under the BMP include:

• Two crude distillation units with a 225,000 b/d capacity
• Two VDUs with a 100,000 b/d capacity
• Two vacuum gas oil (VGO) hydrocracking units with a 58,000 b/d capacity
• Two diesel hydrotreating units with a 50,000 b/d capacity
• A residual hydrocracking unit with a 65,000 b/d capacity
• Tail gas treatment unit
• Sour water stripper unit
• Amine recovery unit
• Bulk acid gas removal unit
• Two hydrogen plants, each with a 125 million standard cubic feet a day (scf/d) capacity
• Three sulphur recovery units with a 250 metric tonnes a day capacity
• Two saturated gas plants, each with a capacity of 30 million scf/d
• Safety and security systems.

In May this year, Bapco Energies announced the death of three workers in an accident at the Sitra refinery.

The accident, involving the failure of process safety equipment, took place on 2 May, immediately killing two workers who were on an on-site inspection. A third worker, who was admitted to hospital, later died due to his injuries.