ISAB S.r.l. consist of three production sites called “SOUTH Plants”, “NORTH Plants” and “IGCC” (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) interconnected each other through a system of pipelines.
Raw materials are typically received though tankers. After berthing, each tanker starts unloading sending, through dedicated pipelines, raw materials into the storage tanks, typically having a capacity of 80—150 thousand cubic meters.
Then the crude oil is sent to the refinery's units where, through a series of processes such as distillation, desulfurization and conversion, it is transformed into finished products, mainly LPG, virgin naphtha, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and fuel oil.
From the very beginning, the ISAB Refinery has been able to utilize technology designed to meet growing demands for environmentally friendly products such as unleaded low sulphur gasoline and diesel and fuels with low sulphur content.
Today, the Refinery is in continuous evolution, with the construction of new facilities and the improvement of the efficiency of existing ones, and this has made possible to meet the continues challenges of the market, through the improvement of the quality of products and the decrease of the emission.
As evidence of the above, the Refinery has obtained several certification issued by independent third parties that affirm the compliance of the refinery with the following international standards:
ISO 14001:2015 for Environmental Management System;
BS OHSAS 18001:2007 for Occupational Health and Safety Management System;
ISO 50001:2011 for Energy Management System;
ISO 9001:2015 for supply
by sea and storage of raw materials, blending and storage of finished products,
products loading and shipping by sea and for laboratory activities.
Last refinery built and started up in Italy, ISAB handles 90% of raw materials and oil products using three jetties, one in Santa Panagia bay about — 6 km far from South Plants, the other two jetties, called the "Superjetty" and "Liquids" jetty, are located in the North Plants, in the Augusta harbour complex. Through these modern jetties ISAB has the possibility to berth cargoes with a tonnage ranging from 1,000 to 600,000 tonnes.
Each platform at the jetties has several loading arms. In all phases of the loading and unloading operations, the arms are managed by a remote control system.
All three jetties have control systems for operation monitoring. All refinery products can be moved through ISAB jetties, from LPG to fuel oil. The jetties are connected to the refinery tanks by pipelines.
Today over 1,000 people are operating on these sites.
The IGCC plant generates electric energy by means of a power station with a design capacity of 549 MW, which can utilize as fuel syngas produced from the gasification of the refinery TAR (asphalt) or natural gas.
The IGCC project has been developed to minimize the environmental impact of ISAB's activity.
Although starting from a very heavy feedstock with high concentration of sulfur, metals and asphaltenes, the technologies used in the complex allow producing electricity almost eliminating impacts on air, water and soil. Emissions form the complex are well below the most restrictive limits imposed by Italian and European regulations.
The heart of the complex is a gasification plant that can process about one million tons/year of TAR generated by refinery plants, transforming it into synthesis gas (syngas) that can be cleaned of sulfur and other components.
The gas, so purified, is then sent to a combined cycle for the production of electricity and steam.
In June 2010 it has been also started up a plant for the production of hydrogen from syngas. The hydrogen produced by this plant, whose capacity is approximately 20kNm3/h is sent to the refining plants that use it for desulphurization processes.
