Industry register
Refinery & Gas Plant Register
Refineries and gas plants are among the heaviest industrial users of water: raw water and demineralised make-up, cooling, desalter wash water, sour water and a large effluent treatment plant, all discharging under a permit. This register lists 1,255 sites with capacity, operator and status. Each process unit is linked to the water and chemistry problems it creates, and sourced water-and-effluent profiles are published for selected sites.
777 refineries worldwide · 478 US gas processing, NGL and LNG plants · 4 site profiles
Site water & effluent profiles
Each profile brings together public permits, regulator decisions and operator disclosures. Every figure is sourced. Anything not publicly available is marked as a gap rather than estimated.
- Refinery · Iraq Basrah Refinery API/CPI. Discharge: Shatt Al-Basrah canal (per academic discharge studies)
- Refinery · Nigeria Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals biological
- Refinery · United Kingdom Fawley Refinery API/CPI + DAF/IGF (oil separators, dual media filtration, DAF, clarifiers); no biological stage. Discharge: Southampton Water via…
- LNG liquefaction · Australia Karratha Gas Plant API/CPI. Discharge: Mermaid Sound (Jetty Outfall, within a MEPA of approx. 500-600 m) and No Name Bay via No Name Creek (Admin…
Browse by country
Africa 95
- Algeria 8
- Angola 5
- Cameroon 2
- Chad 1
- Congo 2
- Democratic Republic of the Congo 1
- Egypt 10
- Eritrea 1
- Ethiopia 1
- Gabon 2
- Ghana 4
- Ivory Coast 3
- Kenya 3
- Liberia 1
- Libya 7
- Madagascar 1
- Mauritania 1
- Morocco 3
- Niger 2
- Nigeria 8
- Senegal 2
- Somalia 4
- South Africa 6
- South Sudan 5
- Sudan 5
- Tanzania 2
- Tunisia 2
- Uganda 1
- Zambia 2
Asia 250
- Afghanistan 4
- Azerbaijan 2
- Bahrain 1
- Bangladesh 4
- China 49
- India 24
- Indonesia 9
- Iran 14
- Iraq 14
- Israel 2
- Japan 31
- Jordan 1
- Kazakhstan 3
- Kuwait 3
- Kyrgyzstan 5
- Malaysia 10
- Mongolia 1
- Myanmar 1
- Oman 3
- Pakistan 9
- Philippines 2
- Qatar 5
- Saudi Arabia 10
- Singapore 3
- South Korea 5
- Sri Lanka 1
- Syria 2
- Taiwan 4
- Tajikistan 1
- Thailand 7
- Turkey 7
- Turkmenistan 2
- United Arab Emirates 7
- Vietnam 2
- Yemen 2
Europe 179
- Albania 3
- Austria 1
- Belarus 2
- Belgium 4
- Bosnia and Herzegovina 1
- Bulgaria 1
- Croatia 2
- Czech Republic 3
- Denmark 2
- Finland 2
- France 12
- Germany 15
- Greece 4
- Hungary 1
- Ireland 1
- Italy 17
- Lithuania 1
- Netherlands 6
- North Macedonia 1
- Norway 3
- Poland 7
- Portugal 2
- Romania 9
- Russia 35
- Serbia 3
- Slovakia 2
- Spain 10
- Sweden 4
- Switzerland 2
- Ukraine 7
- United Kingdom 16
North & Central America 653
Oceania 13
Process units and their water & chemistry issues
This table maps each process unit to the water streams it produces or consumes. Use it to work out what a site's effluent plant has to handle before you ask for analyses.
| Code | Unit | Typical equipment | Water & chemistry issues |
|---|---|---|---|
| CDU | Crude distillation (atmospheric) | Electrostatic desalters (1-2 stage) with HV transformers and mix valves; crude preheat exchanger train; crude charge heater; atmospheric column, side strippers, overhead condensers, reflux drum; desalter wash-water and brine heat exchange | Salt/chloride in crude -> HCl in overhead; desalter emulsions and brine oil carry-under; overhead amine/neutraliser and filming inhibitor dosing; naphthenic acid corrosion on high-TAN crudes; preheat fouling |
| VDU | Vacuum distillation | Vacuum heater; vacuum column with packed beds; steam ejectors or liquid-ring vacuum pumps; surface/barometric condensers; hotwell | Sour, oily hotwell condensate (H2S, NH3, phenols) to sour water stripper; naphthenic acid corrosion in hot sections |
| FCC | Fluid catalytic cracking | Riser reactor, regenerator, cyclones; main fractionator; wet gas compressor; main air blower and power recovery expander; gas concentration unit; flue gas scrubber or ESP; catalyst hoppers | Phenolic and cyanide-bearing sour water; spent caustic (sulphidic, phenolic); scrubber purge with catalyst fines; SOx/NOx and particulate limits |
| HCK | Hydrocracking | High-pressure reactors; recycle and make-up hydrogen compressors; HP/LP separators; amine scrubber; wash-water injection; fractionator | Ammonium bisulphide and chloride salts in effluent air coolers (wash-water quality critical); sour water high in NH3/H2S |
| HDT | Hydrotreating / desulphurisation | Reactor(s); charge heater; recycle compressor; HP separator; product stripper; wash-water injection; amine absorber | Ammonium salt fouling; sour water; H2S (sulphide stress cracking, wet H2S damage) |
| REF | Catalytic reforming (semi-regen or CCR) | Reactors with interheaters; CCR regenerator (if continuous); net gas compressor; stabiliser; chloride guard beds | Organic chlorides and HCl in net gas and stabiliser overhead; green-oil; chloride corrosion in LPG/off-gas |
| ALK | Alkylation (HF or sulphuric acid) | Reactors/contactors, acid settlers, acid regeneration or spent acid plant, caustic and water wash, neutralisation pit | Acidic, fluoride (HF) or sulphate (H2SO4) effluent; neutralisation with lime/KOH; high-hazard acid containment |
| ISO | Isomerisation | Reactors; feed and hydrogen driers; stabiliser; caustic scrubber | Spent caustic; chloride promoter carry-over |
| COK | Coking (delayed / fluid) | Coke drums; coker heater; fractionator; blowdown system; hydraulic coke-cutting water system with settling/clarification; coke handling and storage | Coke-cutting water: high TSS, oily, recirculated; coke fines; blowdown sour water; dust |
| VIS | Visbreaking / thermal cracking | Visbreaker heater and soaker; fractionator | Sour water; coke fouling |
| SDA | Solvent deasphalting | Extractor; solvent recovery (supercritical or flash); pitch handling | Solvent losses; oily condensate |
| LUBE | Lube base oil / wax | Solvent extraction and dewaxing, or hydro-isomerisation; wax handling | Solvent-bearing (phenol/NMP/furfural) effluent |
| ASPH | Bitumen / asphalt | Blowing towers, heated storage, loading | Sour off-gas, oily condensate (sour water) |
| AROM | Aromatics (BTX) extraction | Extractive distillation/extraction columns; solvent (sulfolane) recovery | Solvent/benzene in effluent (benzene limits) |
| H2 | Hydrogen plant (steam methane reforming) | Reformer furnace; shift converters; PSA; process condensate stripper; boiler feedwater and steam system | Process condensate (NH3, methanol, CO2); high BFW demand -> demineralisation/RO |
| SRU | Sulphur recovery (Claus + tail gas) | Claus furnace and waste-heat boiler; catalytic converters and condensers; tail-gas treatment (amine); incinerator; sulphur pit and degassing | Linked to amine regeneration and sour water stripping; SO2 emission limits |
| UTIL | Refinery utilities (every site) | Amine regeneration; sour water stripper(s); flare and flare knock-out drums; cooling water (towers or seawater, with side-stream filters and dosing); raw-water, demineralisation/RO and condensate polishing; steam boilers; effluent treatment (API/CPI separators, equalisation, DAF/IGF, biological, clarifiers, filtration, sludge dewatering); tank farm with tank-bottom water draining; firewater; nitrogen and instrument air; stormwater and oily-drain systems | Cooling-water scaling/corrosion/biofouling and Legionella; ETP: oil in water, sulphides, phenols, ammonia, COD, TSS; spent caustic; tank-bottom water; stormwater surges |
| GAS-GP | Gas processing plant | Inlet slug catcher and separators; condensate stabilisation; amine acid-gas removal (AGRU); TEG or mol-sieve dehydration; mercury removal beds; dew-point control or turbo-expander NGL recovery; compression; flare; produced-water treatment | H2S/CO2 (sour service, amine foaming and degradation); mercury (aluminium exchanger attack); hydrates; produced water with salts, oil, methanol/MEG, corrosion and scale inhibitors, biocides |
| GAS-NGL | NGL fractionation | De-ethaniser, depropaniser, debutaniser columns; product treating (caustic/mol-sieve); storage | Spent caustic; cooling water |
| GAS-SRU | Sulphur recovery (Claus + tail gas) | Claus furnace and waste-heat boiler; catalytic converters and condensers; tail-gas treatment (amine); incinerator; sulphur pit and degassing | Linked to amine regeneration and sour water stripping; SO2 emission limits |
| GAS-LNG | LNG liquefaction | Pre-treatment (AGRU, dehydration, mercury removal); liquefaction train (main cryogenic heat exchanger, refrigerant compressors); LNG storage tanks; BOG compressors; loading jetty; seawater cooling or air coolers; desalination for utility water | Amine degradation; mercury; seawater cooling chlorination (hypochlorite) and discharge temperature; desalination brine |
Related engineering guides
- industrial wastewater treatmentIndustrial Wastewater Treatment: Processes & Selection
- oil grease separatorOil and Grease Separators: Types, Sizing and Selection
- Dissolved air flotationWhat Is a DAF System? How Dissolved Air Flotation Works
- cooling water managementCooling Water Management: Cycles of Concentration and Water Chemistry
- effluent discharge standards UKEffluent Discharge Standards in the UK Explained
Data sources & licence
The worldwide refinery list is derived from Wikipedia's List of oil refineries (CC BY-SA 4.0), so this register is shared under the same licence. US refinery unit capacities come from the EIA Refinery Capacity Report, and US gas plants from the EIA-757 Natural Gas Processing Plant Survey. Both are US public domain. Site profiles cite their own sources line by line. To report a correction, contact us.