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Kellogg Brown & Root, Fortum Oil and Gas Combine to Offer New Technology for High Octane Gasoline
Dallas, TX - Kellogg Brown & Root, a business unit of Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL), today announced an alliance with Fortum Oil and Gas Oy (formerly Neste Oy) to offer a new process technology for high octane gasoline. The technology, called NExOCTANE, will enable refiners to resolve one of the refining industry's most pressing problems: how to replace methyl tertiary butylether (MTBE) in gasoline production and what to do with "stranded" MTBE facilities and feedstocks. The new technology offers a high-octane replacement product called isooctane at a high efficiency and low capital cost.
While environmental issues threaten the future of MTBE as a gasoline additive in the U.S., refiners also are facing challenges to improve octane ratings in gasoline and to determine the future of their MTBE plants and feedstocks. "The new technology allows refiners to convert their existing MTBE production facilities to produce isooctane, a cost-effective replacement for the volume and octane of MTBE in gasoline," said Jack Stanley, Kellogg Brown & Root president and chief executive officer.
Fortum Oil and Gas and its engineering subsidiary, Neste Engineering, developed NExOCTANE at their technology center in Porvoo, Finland. NExOCTANE is an outgrowth of Neste's etherification technologies, NExETHERS™ and NExTAME™.
NExOCTANE has been demonstrated and proven in facilities in Finland. Benefits of the new process include:
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High quality isooctane product with superior octane rating and vapor pressure |
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High conversion operation, with up to 99 percent conversion of isobutylene to product |
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Very low capital cost due to minimum recycle |
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Environmentally sound with no effluent waste disposal problems |
Kellogg Brown & Root will offer this technology for license to refiners and petrochemical companies and will provide engineering and continuing technical support to licensees.
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Kellogg Brown & Root is an international, technology-based engineering and construction company providing a full spectrum of industry-leading services to the hydrocarbon, chemical, energy, forest products, manufacturing, and mining and minerals industries.
Founded in 1919, Halliburton Company is the world's leading diversified energy services, engineering, construction, maintenance and energy equipment company. In 1998, Halliburton's consolidated revenues were $17.4 billion and it conducted business with a workforce of approximately 100,000 in more than 120 countries.
Fortum Oil and Gas Oy is a large European oil and gas company headquartered in Espoo near Helsinki, in Finland. The company has operations in several European countries including Finland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and the Baltic Rim, and major venture operations in Saudi Arabia and Canada. Fortum runs two oil refineries in Finland and focuses on the development of pro-environmental petroleum products.
Fortum Oil and Gas is a subsidiary of Fortum Corporation, one of the Nordic countries' leading energy companies. The corporation encompasses four sectors: Oil and Gas, Power and Heat, Operation and Maintenance, and Engineering. Net sales totaled US $9 billion in 1998. The stock listed parent company Fortum Corporation is resulting from the merger of two major Finnish companies, Neste Oy and IVO Oy. The company's World Wide Web site can be accessed at www.fortum.com.
Contact
Wendy Hagan
wendy.hagan@halliburton.com
Halliburton Company
Public Relations
(p) 713.676.5619
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