Bangkok--20 Jun--PTT PTT Aromatics and Refining Public Company Limited (PTTAR) signed US$ 31 million contracts to upgrade the refinery’s gas turbine generator with GE Packaged Power Inc (USA), a subsidiary of General Electric Corporation, and Dresser-Rand AS (Norway) to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission from the refinery by 13%, thereby making PTTAR a pioneer in implementing the emission reduction project and applying for the Board of Investment (BOI) privileges according to the investment promotion measures to solve environmental problems in Map Ta Phut prescribed by the National Environment Board’s 2007-2011 action plan on pollution reduction and eradication in Rayong province. Mr. Permsak Shevawattananon, CEO of PTTAR, said on 20 June 2008 that the company has targeted to partially reduce NOx emission by early 2009 in compliance with EIA report for the Clean Fuel and Product Quality Development in the company’s five-year plan. “GE Packaged Power Inc will produce new steam-injection gas turbines to replace in the existing gas turbine generator while Dresser-Rand AS will design and install steam-injection control system to work with the gas turbines. The installation of the steam-injection control system will control the temperature, resulting in the reduction of NOx emission from 10 to 6 grams/second,” Mr. Permsak Shevawattananon stated. CEO of PTTAR said that the gas turbines will be upgraded one by one during the 2009-2011 planned shutdowns, necessitating no other additional shutdown for gas turbine upgrade, and saving up to US$ 2.7 million per 1 gas turbine unit or a total of US$ 8.1 million of those 3 gas turbines of maintenance cost. PTTAR’s Clean Fuel and Product Quality Development Project consists of I Upgrading Complex Project to process condensate residue, a by-product from aromatics complex, into higher-value refined products, including diesel, jet A-1 and fuel oil; II Clean Fuel Project of the Deep Hydro Desulphurization Unit, to boost the quality of diesel for Euro IV standard, effective on 1 January 2012; III Mercury Removal Unit Project (MRU) of the refinery, to remove mercury from naphtha and LPG, enabling the refinery to process domestic high-mercury crude; and IV Platformer Splitter Project, to split reformate from the refinery into light and heavy reformates and send for further processing into benzene and paraxylene at the aromatics plants. PTT Aromatics and Refining Public Company Limited (PTTAR) was established by the amalgamation between The Aromatics (Thailand) Public Company Limited (ATC) and Rayong Refinery Public Company Limited (RRC) on December 27, 2007. The integration enables PTTAR to become Thailand’s No. 1 integrated aromatics refinery with a refining capacity of 280,000 barrels per day and aromatics production capacity of 2,228,000 tons per year in September 2008.