As part of its commitment to the circular economy, REPSOL has built a 2nd generation biofuels plant in Cartagena. It is the first advanced low-emission biofuels plant in Spain, with the capacity to produce 250,000 tons per year of biodiesel, biojet, bionaphtha and biopropane from waste supplied from the agri-food industry. The plant consists of a pre-treated feedstock storage unit, a hydrotreating unit, an H2 production plant and a storage area for the biofuels produced.

AITESA’s scope includes:

• Hydraulic, thermal, mechanical and structural design of the complete 607F-001 and 607F-002 furnaces.
• Fabrication, supply and assembly, including:
  • Combustion skid with fuel gas filters
  • Burners
• Design, supply and installation of the complete heat recovery system.
• Design of control system with associated instrumentation.
• Supply and installation of instruments

Furnace 607F-001 serves the HDI reactor and furnace 607F-002 serves the splitter reboiler. The units have an efficiency with cold air of 83% and 80%, respectively. These vertical cylindrical furnaces have 3 low NOx burners each, and are suitable for fuel gas combustion. The burners are designed for forced draft. They are also suitable for natural draft operation, in which case the furnace capacity is reduced to 60%. The 607F-001 and 607F-002 furnaces have a shared heat recovery system consisting of a forced draft fan for air circulation, an induced draft fan for flue gas circulation, and a plate type air-flue preheater that operates above the acid dew point with a flue gas outlet temperature of 131ºC. Heat recovery heats the combustion air to 269ºC, increasing the efficiency of the 607F-001 furnace to 92% and of the 607F-002 furnace to 90%, with consequent fuel savings and reduction in CO2 emissions.