Nitrogen & Methanol articles from July 2002

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from July 2002

Russia -- is change real or only skin deep? (Editorial).(economic overview)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
July 1, 2002... It has taken ten years, but the signs are that Russia finally seems to be putting seven decades of communism behind it. In late early June the US Department of Commerce followed the EU in declaring Russian market economy. There is now talk of...

Price trends.(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... AMMONIA Yuzhnyy rates fall but others firm The ammonia market saw some bifurcation during May as Yuzhnyy prices dipped while rates in other regions continued to increase. Strong demand from India kept Arabian Gulf rates rising, from...

Arrests follow Toulouse blast. (Nitrogen Industry News).(for involuntary manslaughter)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... French authorities investigating last year's 21st September explosion at the Grande Paroisse ammonium nitrate plant in Toulouse remanded 11 people in custody on June 11th. Four of them, two of them employees at the AZF factory, along with two...

New urea plant for Sabic. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Sabic has proposed the construction of Safco IV, a new ammoniaurea facility at its al-Jubail site. An invitation to bid has been offered with contractors having until the end of July to submit proposals. The plant is envisaged as a 1.lm t/a...

Bush signs farm bill into law. (Nitrogen Industry News).(President George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... President Bush has added his signature to a controversial farm bill, passing it into law. While admitting that the legislation, which provides $190bn of assistance for the US agriculture sector, was "not a perfect bill", Mr Bush rejected pleas...

Bankruptcies spread. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Farmland Industries files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Farmland Industries has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, following 2Q 2002 losses of $30M and losses over the year to February 2002 of $46.5m. Losses in the company's fertilizer sector were even higher at $35.9m in the second quarter...

UAN trade action as Russia gains market economy status. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... US producers of UAN have launched an action against imports from Russia. The Nitrogen Solutions Fair Trade Committee, representing CF Industries, Terra and Mississippi Chemicals, claim that US industry has been materially harmed by the imports....

Urea evangelist arrested for fraud. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Motilal Sudeen)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Motilal Sudeen, a businessman from Louisiana who had been pushing an extraordinary $4bn, 10m t/a urea development in Poplarville, Mississippi, has been indicted on fraud charges. Mr Sudeen and a co-defendant allegedly defrauded investors out of...

Agrium joins Plenty River partnership. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Plenty River Corporation Ltd, which is aiming to build a large-scale 1.15m t/a ammonia-urea complex on the Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia, has signed an agreement with Canada's Agrium, allowing the project to move forward. The project...

Oswal also progressing on Burrup plant. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Oswal Chemicals and Fertilizers)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... India's Oswal Chemicals and Fertilizers has cleared two of the remaining hurdles to its planned construction of the world's largest ammonia plant. An agreement has been reached between OCFL subsidiary Burrup Fertilizers and native Australian...

DSM becomes Royal DSM. (Nitrogen Industry News).(brief history and plans of coal mining company)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... On the 100th anniversary of its foundation DSM has become Royal DSM. In 1902 the Dutch government founded Dutch State Mines (later to become DSM) as a state-owned coal-mining company. As DSM expanded its coal mining and processing activities,...

Ground broken on CNOOC plant. (News in Brief).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Work has begun on the China National Offshore Oil Company's (CNOOC) 450,000 t/a ammonia plant at Dongfang on Hainan Island. Work on an associated 800,000 t/a urea plant has been ongoing since June last year. The plant is due to be onstream in...

Omifco contract finally signed. (News in Brief).(Buyers Guide)
July 1, 2002... The $770m lump sum turnkey construction contract for the twin-train Oman-India Fertilizer Company (Omifco) 1.1m t/a ammonia/urea complex at Sur has finally been signed by Franco-Italian partners Snamprogetti and Technip-Coflexip. The companies...

Sumitomo and Mistui to merge. (News in Brief).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Japanese Chemical giants Sumitomo Chemicals and Mitsui Chemicals have brought forward merger plans from April 2004 to the end of 2003. The two companies have already merged their polyolefins sectors as part of restructuring to enhance the...

Kaltim speeds up urea startup. (News in Brief).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Construction work has proceeded faster than anticipated on the 570,000 t/a Kaltim IV ammonia-urea plant at Bontang, and the company says it now anticipates a start-up for May 2002 for the urea section and May 2003 for the associated 330,000 t/a...

Kemira to close Rosenburg by October. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Finnish fertilizer major Kemira Agro has announced the final closure of fertilizer operations at its Rosenburg site by October. The 55,000 t/a liquid fertilizer plant was all that remained after the company closed most of its nitrogen...

Namhae to split off fertilizer business. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Namhae Chemical Corporation has decided to split the company into a fertilizer manufacturer and a fine chemical manufacturer. The move is seen as yet another company seeking to reposition itself away from bulk chemicals and into higher...

More ammonia planned. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Even as it puts the finishing touches on its fourth ammonia plant - and Trinidad's tenth - Trinidadian financial group CL Financial, led by local entrepreneur Lawrence Duprey, has signed a $220m agreement with long-term partner German banking...

Hydro to restrict technology licenses. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Norsk Hydro has said that it will no longer license its widely used urea granulation technology. The company feels that as a major fertilizer producer its licensing is enabling competitors to complete on a more even footing. Existing contracts...

Degussa sells Piesteritz. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Degussa, another chemical company trying to rebrand itself as a specialities producer, is to sell its SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz fertilizer unit to Swiss Chemical trader Ameropa Holding AG, and also to Czech producer Agrofert, which is also...

Krupp Uhde returns to Uhde. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The ThyssenKrupp Group has decided that project engineering and technology division Krupp Uhde can return to the former name of Uhde GmbH. Uhde was incorporated in 1921 as one of the original commercialisers of the Bosch-Haber ammonia process,...

More urea subsidy cuts. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Indian government has introduced new measures to reduce the subsidy level to urea producers. The government plans to lower the 'retention price' at which urea is sold, telling producers to cut their production costs to compensate by...

Naphtha prices drive producers to form import group. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Eleven Indian urea producers have formed a consortium to import naphtha through the Fertilizer Association of India (FM) in an effort to source competitively priced feedstock. A fixed price formula for naphtha was discontinued by the Indian...

New Indian AN capacity planned. (Nitrogen Industry News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals is building a 100,000 t/a AN plant at Taloja near Mumbai. The company already produces ammonia, methanol, nitric acid, and 36,000 t/a at the site. The new plant, using Grande Pariosse technology, is...

Correction.
July 1, 2002... Last issue's article on the GulfNitrogen 2002 Conference contained two mislabelled photograph captions. Mr Yousef al-Kuwari and Mr Fakhroo were both incorrectly identified as Hamed al-Marwani, and Nitrogen & Methanol apologises for the...

New methanol plant forging ahead. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Progress has been made on the 970,000 t/a methanol facility planned by the Saudi International Petroleum Company (SIPC) -- see Nitrogen & Methanol 254, Nov/Dec 2001, pp12-13. SPIC is developing the complex, which includes small butanediol and...

Gas ventures finally signed. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Saudi Arabia's $25bn opening up of its gasfields for development via the three so-called 'core ventures' has finally been signed, three months after the deadline for negotiation was over and after some hard bargaining that nearly saw one...

Another new methanol plant proposal. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... The Saudi Methanol Company (Ar Razi) is conducting a feasibility study on building a fifth methanol unit at al Jubail. According to reports, the company is considering a 1.65m t/a plant, similar to the new units being built and/or proposed for...

Largest ever gas find. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology is claiming that the gas find at Su Li Gein in Inner Mongolia contains 600bcm of natural gas, with tip to 1,000bcm in the region as a whole. This would represent the largest single reservoir ever...

Indian plan for MTO production. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... An Indian producer of sugar and ceramic tiles, Jamal al Ghurair, is looking into building a methanol to olefins (MTO) plant as part of a petroleum coking complex in Dubai. The coker would process 150,000 t/a of fuel oil to make 1.6m t/a of...

Feasibility study on new methanol plant. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Polish fertilizer and chemical producer Zaklady Azotowe Kedzierzyn (ZAK) has commissioned a feasibility study on a proposal to build a methanol plant at its site in Kedzierzyn. Most of the cost of the $200,000 study will come from the US Trade...

Fuel cell car completes continental crossing. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... On June 4th DaimlerChrysler's methanol fuel-cell powered Necar 5 arrived in Washington DC, completing the first trans-continental trip for a fuel cell vehicle. Methanol producer Methanex delivered methanol in advance to refuelling points every...

DMFC technology to be launched commercially. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... A technology for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) is to be launched commercially by Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Corporation (DMFCC), using technology developed by a partnership of the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the...

Gas demand fails to materialise. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Turkey's rapid economic slowdown, partially caused by violent earthquakes which hit Istanbul in 1999, has meant that the anticipated huge demand for gas in the country has failed to materialise. The Turkish economy contracted by 9.4% in 2001,...

GTL financial closure by November. (Gas and Methanol News).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... The $1.1bn joint venture gas to liquids (GTL) plant being planned by Qatar Petroleum and Sasol Chevron is expected to reach financial closure in November. Four groups have been prequalified to submit bids for the engineering, procurement and...

Methanex losses. (News in Brief).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Canadian methanol major Methanex lost C$17.4m for 1Q 2002, compared with a $123m profit for the same period last year. The company blamed falling methanol prices for the decline; methanol prices fell from $225/t in early 2001 around the time of...

New syngas plant for China. (News in Brief).(Technip-Coflexip awarded BASF-YPC syngas plant contract)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... BASF-YPC, a 50-50 joint venture between BASF and Chinese petrochemical company Sinochem has awarded the [euro]60m act for its new syngas plant, producing carbon monoxide and hydrogen, to French technology firm Technip-Coflexip. The plant, which...

Indian DME proposal. (News in Brief).(Gas Authority of India Ltd. plans dimethyl ether plant)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) is looking at building a 100,000 t/a dimethyl ether (DME) in Uttar Pradesh. The Auraiya petrochemical complex would be used as a source of carbon dioxide, with off-gases from the nearby methanol plant also...

Gas plans in trouble. (News in Brief).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Peru's attempts to find outlets for its giant 350bcm Camisea gas field have run into difficulties on several fronts. Two gas-fired powers stations with a combined output of 387MW have had bids postponed twice, from May 1st to June 15th, due to...

International Fertiliser Society. (People).(Pier Luigi Graziano elected president)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... At its Annual General Meeting held in Saskatoon, Canada, on 30 May 2002, Pier Luigi Graziano was elected president of the International Fertiliser Society. Mr Graziano of Aryan s.r.l. is a fertiliser consultant and publisher based in Bologna,...

Kraig Naasz. (People).(president of The Fertilizer Institute)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Kraig Naasz has replaced Gary Myers as president of The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) as of June 1st. Mr Naasz was previously president and CEO of the US Apple Association. He has also worked in a staff capacity for various senators and...

Larry Odell. (People).(joins HJ Baker)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Larry Odell has joined HJ Baker as a sales representative. Odell has worked for 20 years in the fertilizer industry including periods with Gold West Chemical and Unocal/Prodica.

Is the carnival over for Latin America? (Latin America).(Industry Overview)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... In spite of Brazil's World Cup victory, dark clouds have gathered over Latin America's prospects. Nitrogen & Methanol takes a look at a region which had been one of the main growth areas for new nitrogen capacity. Following the oil crisis...

The unwanted fertilizer. (Ammonium Sulphate Production).(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Ammonium sulphate has suffered a long, slow decline from the days when it was the most popular nitrogen fertilizer in the developed world. However, growing sulphur deficiencies in fields have led to a revival of interest in some quarters in...

Full house at Uhde's symposium: Uhde GmbH -- yes, it's officially called that again -- had a large audience at its quadrennial showcase in Dortmund in June. (Meeting Report).(Company Profile)
July 1, 2002... Just when we had all got used to the "new" name, Krupp Uhde has now changed back to its previous name, Uhde GmbH. Before an audience of 150, drawn from Uhde's customers, suppliers, consultants and other privileged guests, in the conference room...

Mega-ammonia round-up. (Production Technology).(ammonia plant construction)
July 1, 2002... The main ammonia plant contractors are all offering large plant concepts for from 3,000 t/d to an astonishing 6,000 t/d. That represents the biggest proportionate leap in capacity since the introduction of the integrated single-train ammonia...