Nitrogen & Methanol articles from July 2004

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from July 2004

Urea in your car.(Editorial)
July 1, 2004... Nitrogen & Methanol has for some years followed the spreading popularity of selective catalyst reduction (SCR) systems. Initially part of stack gas NOx treatment systems for nitric acid plants, they have since become part of the preferred...

Prices soar again.(Ammonia)
July 1, 2004... A shortage of supply, especially at Yuzhnyy, caused ammonia prices to climb steeply during May. All 290,000 tonnes of May availability was sold out at Yuzhnyy by the end of the first week, with the US taking much of the excess that had caused...

Urea prices moving upwards.(Urea)
July 1, 2004... In spite of the end of the buying season in Europe and European Asia and the long-awaited downturn in freight rates that had climbed to unprecedented levels over the previous winter and spring, fresh demand in Latin America and Africa...

Gas prices push prices upwards.(Methanol)
July 1, 2004... The June contract natural gas reference price was settled early in the month, at $6.69/mmBtu for Texas, and $6.81/mmBtu for Louisiana, up $0.78/mmBtu on average from the May contract price. Stronger crude oil and natural gas pricing, the...

EU decides on FSU AN imports.(European Union)
July 1, 2004... The European Commission has come to a decision regarding imports of ammonium nitrate from Russia and Ukraine into the new accession countries (the EU-10: Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Cyprus and Malta)....

Agreement between the EU and Russia on gas prices.(Nitrogen Industry News)
July 1, 2004... Negotiations between the European Commission and Russia over natural gas seem to indicate that Russia has agreed to move towards market economy principles for providing gas to the Russian industry as part of a deal on becoming a full member of...

Acron starts stabilised AN production at Novgorod.(Russia)
July 1, 2004... Russian fertilizer producer Acron has begun to make stabilised ammonium nitrate (AN) at its Velikiy Novgorod site in northwest Russia. The AN capacity consists of two 450,000 t/a units, dating from the late 1970s, that are partly based on melt...

Kemira closes Fredericia site.(Denmark)
July 1, 2004... Kemira GrowHow has decided to permanently end production at its Fredericia site in Denmark this summer. The production shutdown will mean a halt to all chemical production at the site. The units that will close include nitric acid, 80,000t/a...

New lawsuit for Grande Paroisse.(France)
July 1, 2004... French explosives producer SNPE is taking legal action against Grande Paroisse in relation to the September 2001 explosion at the latter's AZF fertiliser facility at Toulouse. SNPE is seeking [euro]190m ($230m) in damages, in addition to the...

Helwan Fertilizers to build new urea unit.(Egypt)
July 1, 2004... Egypt's Helwan Fertilizers, part of El Nasr Coke and Chemical Company, is to build a 1,925t/day urea and 1,200t/day ammonia unit at Helwan. Germany's Uhde was awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract, which is estimated to...

Sabic board agrees new methanol investment.(Saudi Arabia)
July 1, 2004... At a meeting of the Sabic board of directors in the Netherlands, chairman Prince Saud Ibn Abdullah Ibn Thunayan Al-Saud endorsed expansion investments of $6.4bn. As well as large ethylene expansions, the investments include a new mega-methanol...

GTL project cancellation.(Australia)
July 1, 2004... Syntroleum has cancelled its planned Sweetwater gas to liquids (GTL) project. The $500m project was originally planned for the town of Sweetwater in the US (hence the name), but the project proposal was moved to Australia's Burrup Peninsula in...

Call for gas trading curbs.(United States)
July 1, 2004... Peter Huntsman, president and CEO of Huntsman has said that he believes US gas markets need tighter regulation to smooth out some of the wild swings in gas prices. Pointing to a recent occasion where the gas price on the New York Mercantile...

Methanex secures additional gas.(New Zealand)
July 1, 2004... Methanex has reached agreement with all of the parties to the Maui gas contracts which provides the company rights for up to 40 petajoules of natural gas from the Maui field offshore New Zealand. This gas, together with entitlements from other...

Mega methanol plant for Oman?(Oman)
July 1, 2004... Another methanol plant proposal has emerged for Oman. The plant, details of which are still being negotiated, will have a projected capacity of 3,000-5,000 t/d (990,000 - 1,650,000 t/a), with project costs of $350m-400m. The project's proposed...

Kharg plant to use Davy technology.(Iran)
July 1, 2004... Iran's Kharg Petrochemical Company has signed a contract with a consortium consisting of local firms Namvaran and Towse'eh Shabakehaye for the construction of a second methanol plant at Kharg Island. The contract for this second methanol...

Gazprom examines export options.(Russia)
July 1, 2004... Gazprom is looking at how its future options for the export of natural gas will shape up. At present, Gazprom has about 195 bcm of export capacity, all of it by pipeline. Roughly 146 bcm of this is transit capacity to Ukraine, 33 bcm via the...

New methanol capacity.(China)
July 1, 2004... Incremental Chinese expansion of methanol capacity continues. In Shaanhua, the Shaanhu Company Ltd has started up a 30,000 t/a methanol line with ammonia coproduction capability. The project cost Rmb 10m ($1.2m). A feasibility study is also...

Methanol from biomass.(China)
July 1, 2004... The Synthetic Fuel Laboratory of CAS Guangzhou Energy Research Institute, together with Hong Kong University, has announced the development of several new catalysts for methanol synthesis from biomass-derived syngas. Biomass gasification leads...

Another new gas find.(India)
July 1, 2004... Reliance Industries has announced that it has made another major gas strike in the Bay of Bengal. Although this new find is dwarfed by last year's find in the nearby Krishna Godavari basin, which estimates put at 200-400bcm, the Dhirubhai find...

Yara.(People)
July 1, 2004... Yara has appointed Jack Gale as president of the company's North American operations. He will replace Ed Cavazuti, who has been named by the company as president of its Asian operations, based in Singapore. Mr Gale was previously executive vice...

The Arab Fertilizer Association.(People)
July 1, 2004... The Arab Fertilizer Association has named Dr Shafik Ashkar as its general secretary, with effect from June 1st. Dr Ashkar's predecessor was Mr Ali Hamdi, who has retired after serving as the Association's secretary general for seven years.

Steve Hoffman will continue with the merged Cargill-IMC Global fertilizer company.(People)
July 1, 2004... Steve Hoffman, currently senior vice president and president of sales and marketing for IMC Global, will continue with the merged Cargill-IMC Global fertilizer company, Cargill has said. He will be responsible for the sales and marketing of IMC...

Diary.(Calendar)
July 1, 2004... September 20-23 AIChE Safety in Ammonia Plants and Related Facilities Symposium, Denver, USA. Contact: Scott Rothschild, AIChE, 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA. Tel: +1 212 591 8854. Fax: +1 212 591 8892. Email:...

Ammonia as a refrigerant: although a minority use for ammonia, refrigeration has made something of a comeback since the banning of various chlorofluorocarbons under the Montreal Protocol.(Ammonia)
July 1, 2004... Something in the region of 130m t/a of ammonia is produced globally. Of this, about 80% is used for agriculture, either directly applied as in the US, or via conversion into urea, ammonium nitrate, diammonium phosphate or other fertilizers. Of...

China's nitrogen and methanol industries: China has been the site of much of the recent plant construction activity in the nitrogen and methanol industries as it struggles to keep pace with burgeoning demand. However, problems of feedstock availability and the impact of international competition as the country liberalises are also making themselves felt.(China)
July 1, 2004... China's nitrogen industry has had to develop from small beginnings--in 1949, fertilizer production in China was less than 6,000 t/a nutrient. However, imported Soviet technology led to the development of domestic urea and SSP plants, with...

Nitrogen project listing 2004.(Nitrogen Project Listing)
July 1, 2004... Nitrogen project listing 2004 Contractor Licensor Company Location Product AUSTRALIA Thiess Uhde Plenty River Pilbara Ammonia Thiess Stamicarbon/ Plenty River ...

Urea beside the sea: representatives from Stamicarbon's client companies, licensed contractors and equipment suppliers were treated to a comprehensive programme of papers and round-table discussions at Stamicarbon's upbeat Urea Symposium in Scheveningen in May.(Symposium Report)
July 1, 2004... The Dutch chemical manufacturer DSM has been a urea manufacturer since the infancy of that industry and has run the entire gamut of urea synthesis processes as both developer and operator, from the original "once-through" plants, through...

Compact heat exchangers in ammonia/urea production: in ammonia and urea plants the predominant heat transfer equipment has traditionally been the massive shell-and-tube heat exchanger. Jakob Liedberg, of Alfa Laval, shows how compact plate heat exchangers have made inroads in even these exacting applications.(Process Equipment)
July 1, 2004... The shell-and-tube heat exchanger is the most tried and tested of all heat exchanger designs. It dates back to the beginnings of the industrial revolution, when it was the basis of some of the earliest industrial steam boilers. It was the...

Performance is the key: the perfect ammonia synthesis catalyst is nowhere nearer, but incremental improvements in catalyst technology and operating practice in the various process stages are enhancing plant efficiency and economics.(Ammonia Catalysts)
July 1, 2004... Aconventional steam-reforming ammonia plant contains seven catalytic stages--feedstock desulphurisation, primary reforming, secondary reforming, HT CO shift, LT CO shift, methanation and synthesis. Some plants may have an eighth...

On-line reference--and so much more.(Website Review)
July 1, 2004... Websites proliferate at such an astonishing rate that it is well nigh impossible to keep track of even those that might merit the effort. Occasionally, one comes across a website that stands out in terms of its usefulness, technical competence...