Material Insights · Understanding the Material World

Refining and reforming: Equipment and suppliers

Columns, catalysts and reformer tubes glowing inside a refinery

What this tab covers For each method, the main pieces of equipment, who makes them (by region) and what they are made of (bill of materials).

Refineries are built from fired heaters, columns, reactors, compressors and heat exchangers; hydrogen plants add reformer furnaces, shift reactors and PSA units; gasification adds air separation, gasifiers and synthesis reactors.

Oil refinery

Distillation columns and internals8

Separate crude into fractions on trays or packing.

Europe Sulzer (Switzerland) United States Honeywell UOP (column trays)
Bill of materials
  • Shell: carbon steel with corrosion-resistant cladding in hot sections
  • Internals: stainless-steel trays and structured packing
Catalytic reformer and FCC units821

Make high-octane gasoline and crack heavy oil.

United States Honeywell UOP (modular CCR reformer, catalyst coolers), KBR (FCC technology)
Bill of materials
  • Catalysts: platinum on alumina (reforming); zeolite powder (FCC)
  • Reactor and regenerator: refractory-lined steel vessels, cyclones
Compressors8

Move hydrogen and process gas around reactors.

Europe Everllence, formerly MAN Energy Solutions (Germany)
Bill of materials
  • Machine: steel casings, forged impellers or pistons, electric motor or steam turbine drive

Steam methane reforming

Reformer furnace and tubes816

Hold catalyst at high temperature while burners heat the tubes from outside.

Europe Air Liquide (France), Topsoe (Denmark), Linde (Ireland-domiciled), thyssenkrupp Uhde (Germany), Casale (Switzerland) United States Air Products, KBR
Bill of materials
  • Catalyst: nickel on a ceramic support
  • Tubes: high-alloy nickel-chromium cast tubes
  • Furnace: steel box with refractory lining and burners
Shift reactors and pressure swing adsorption (PSA)91619

Convert CO to extra hydrogen and purify the product.

Europe Topsoe (Denmark) United States Honeywell UOP (including the former Johnson Matthey Catalyst Technologies shift catalysts, acquired July 2026)
Bill of materials
  • Catalysts: iron-chromium and copper-zinc shift catalysts
  • PSA: steel vessels packed with adsorbents such as zeolites and activated carbon

Coal gasification and coal-to-liquids

Gasifier12131415

Turns coal, oxygen and steam into syngas.

United States Air Products (GE and Shell technologies; GE's had 240 gasifiers at 90 sites) China CHN Energy Ningxia Coal Industry (Shenning gasifier, based on GSP design) Rest of world Sasol (Sasol-Lurgi fixed-bed dry-bottom gasifier, South Africa)
Bill of materials
  • Pressure vessel: steel shell with refractory or water-cooled membrane wall
  • Burners and quench: high-alloy burner tips; slag handling
Air separation unit916

Supplies oxygen for gasification or ATR.

Europe Linde (Ireland-domiciled), Air Liquide (France) United States Air Products
Bill of materials
  • Cold box: aluminium plate-fin heat exchangers and distillation columns at cryogenic temperature
  • Main air compressor: large multi-stage compressor, the main power user
Fischer-Tropsch reactor1213

Builds liquid hydrocarbons from syngas.

Rest of world Sasol (Advanced Synthol reactors; 9 at Secunda) China Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (technology for Ningxia)
Bill of materials
  • Catalyst: iron-based for coal syngas (cobalt in gas-to-liquids)
  • Reactor: large steel vessel with internal cooling tubes raising steam

Sources

  1. Dangote Refinery, Lagos (project profile, 2021; completion dates in it are out of date) NS Energy, 2021
  2. Comparison of Commercial, State-of-the-Art, Fossil-Based Hydrogen Production Technologies National Energy Technology Laboratory, US DOE, 2022
  3. Gasifipedia: Sasol National Energy Technology Laboratory, US DOE, 2024
  4. Visiting the world's biggest single coal-to-liquid project in Yinchuan, China IEA Clean Coal Centre (sustainable-carbon.org), 2017
  5. Air Products buys Shell's coal gasification business The Chemical Engineer (IChemE), 2018
  6. Air Products to buy General Electric's gasification business The Chemical Engineer (IChemE), 2018
  7. Hydrogen reformers: technology leaders (research firm summary) Thunder Said Energy, 2023
  8. Annual Statistical Bulletin 2025 press release (world refinery capacity and throughput, 2024) OPEC, 2025
  9. KBR awarded FCC revamp contract Hydrocarbon Engineering, 2016