Nitrogen & Methanol articles from March 2001

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from March 2001

Nitrogen project listing 2001.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Nitrogen project listing 2001 Contractor Licensor Company ALGERIA Fritz Werner Kaltenbach-Thuring Asmidal n.a. n.a. Asmidal AUSTRALIA Lurgi...

Is the Gulf's day here at last?(gas reserves in the Middle East)
March 1, 2001... The number of new ammonia and methanol projects in the Arabian Gulf has been increasing rapidly over the past few years. Nitrogen & Methanol looks at whether the region is finally achieving the things expected of it ever since 1973. The...

Primary reformer problems.(environmental considerations in methanol and ammonia plants)
March 1, 2001... The largest and most expensive item in an ammonia or methanol plant, the primary reformer is also the most critical. Avoiding failures in it depends not only on technological improvements but on good operation of the entire plant. Time was...

People.(staff appointments)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Ken Pederson, assistant vice president of ammonia sales, retired from Hydro Agri North America at the end of 2000 after 39 years in the industry. Mr Pederson had previously worked at CF Industries and Transammonia. Norsk Hydro has...

Nitrogen 2001 conference report.
March 1, 2001... The Nitrogen 2001 International Conference and Exhibition, organised by British Sulphur Publishing was held at the Hyatt Regency Westshore, from the 18th to the 21st February, 2001. This year's Nitrogen conference came to Tampa just as the...

More work on DMFC fuel cells.(DMFC - direct methanol fuel cells)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... A C$1.5m (US$1.0m) joint project between the National Research Council of Canada, the University of Guelph, Ontario, and direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) developer Energy Ventures is to attempt to improve the anodes in DMFCs as part of ongoing...

Metor to proceed with new methanol plant.
March 1, 2001... Venezuela's Methanol de Oriente (Metor) has indicated that it will proceed with development of its second methanol stream at Jose. The 750,000 t/a plant, provisionally costed at $280m, would be a duplicate of the existing plant, built by...

Lurgi wins contract to build another massive methanol plant.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Iran's Zagros Petrochemical Company (a subsidiary of the state-owned National Petrochemical Company -- NPC) has awarded Lurgi the contract to design and build a 5,000 t/d (1.65m t/a) methanol plant at Bandar Assaluye. The project -- Iran's...

Petronet awards LNG contracts.(Petronet LNG Ltd.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... India's Petronet LNG has awarded the $310m engineering, procurement and construction contract for its 5.0m t/a LNG import terminal at Dahej in Gujarat state to a Japanese-Dutch consortium. The consortium, consisting of TEC, Itochu, Mitsui,...

Oswal Group to build ammonia plant?(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... India's Oswal group has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Harriet Joint Venture (HJV) over the construction of a 660,000 t/a ammonia plant on Australia's Burrup Peninsula. HJV is a consortium exploring gas from the Harriet field on...

Alternate gas source for Phu My.(Vietnam Oil and Gas Corp.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... PetroVietnam has abandoned negotiations to build an 800,000 t/a ammonia-urea complex with the consortium developing the Nam Con Son gas basin and associated pipeline to an onshore power plant. The issue of gas prices has been an insuperable...

Urea production finally begins at Profertil.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Porfertil announced on January 12th that it had commenced production at its new 1,100,000 t/a urea facility at Bahia Blanca. Four days later the plant produced its target 3,250 tonnes/day -- making it the largest single urea train in operation....

Gas prices fall -- but how far?(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... After the shock of the past few months, when Henry Hub spot rates peaked at $10.50/mmBtu at the end of December, gas prices have started to return to less heart-stopping levels as the cold weather in the US eases and the oil price falls....

MTBE battle continues.(Methyl tertiary butyl ether; Oxygenated Fuels Association)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Oxygenated Fuels Association (OFA) has filed a lawsuit to overturn the ban on the use of MTBE. The OFA suit is based upon the fact that the federal Clean Air Act has established uniform requirements for gasoline that pre-empt California's...

Rentech studying another methanol to GTL conversion.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Rentech is conducting a feasibility study on converting the 80,000 t/a Coastal methanol plant at Cheyenne, Wyoming to a 2,500 b/d GTL plant using the company's own proprietary technology. With US demand for methanol expected to drop, many...

Gas supplies to Georgia cut.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Russia cut off gas supplies to neighbouring Georgia for several weeks at the end of last year as part of an attempt to put pressure on the republic over various matters, from the timing of the removal of 18,000 Russian troops which are part of...

Probe on Gazprom links with Itera.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Russian Duma's audit chamber has begun an inquiry into dealings between gas giant Gazprom and 'independent' gas trading company Itera, registered in Florida. Over the past three years Itera has grown from nothing to become the largest...

Statoil opts for Lurgi MTP demonstrator.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... German engineering and construction firm Lurgi AG says that it has developed a commercial process for producing propylene from methanol. A demonstrator unit is to be constructed at Statoil's Tjelbergodden methanol plant in Norway, with...

Jacobs to supply technology.(Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Jacobs Engineering has been selected to supply its technology for the proposed 850,000 t/a Saudi International Petrochemical Co methanol plant at al-Jubail. No timescale for the project has yet been disclosed.

Anti-dumping under fire.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... One of the cause celebres of the fertilizer industry in recent years has been so-called 'dumping' of fertilizers on markets at unfairly low prices. As detailed in the previous issue of Nitrogen & Methanol (No 249, January/February 2001, pp...

Prices peak on high gas prices.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... All eyes were on the US for the past two months as high gas prices caused plant shutdowns, leading to increased volumes of imports which caused prices in the US Gulf to skyrocket, and dragging up prices all around the world. Caribbean prices...

US shutdowns bring prices up.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... As US producers shut down due to the high gas prices, the need for additional imports pushed up urea prices. New Orleans f.o.b. barge prices, which had reached $165/st by the end of December, touched $210/st in mid-January, with prices upriver...

Gas prices cause methanol spike.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... The January contract natural gas price for the US Gulf Coast was settled early in the month. The calculated average for Texas and Louisiana was $9.93/mmBtu, representing a staggering increase of $3.81/mmBtu from December's contract price, and...

Ukrainian AN is being dumped, says Commerce.(Ammonium Nitrate)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The US Department of Commerce (DoC) has made an initial determination against imports of urea from the Ukraine, ruling that it is being sold at prices up to 53% below its market value (i.e. that a 113% premium would need to be charged to bring...

Gas prices force more shutdowns.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... Terra idled most of its North American facilities in January rather than purchasing gas for them at wildly inflated prices. Two thirds of the company's ammonia, 60% of its UAN and 76% of its urea facilities were shut down. Taken together with...

Government sets gas price to fertilizer industry.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Mexican government has agreed a deal with leading gas-consuming industries that would see gas prices pegged at $4.00/mmBtu. The deal follows industry protests over Mexican natural gas prices, which had risen in line with the price spike...

EFC restarts urea plant.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... EFC has restarted its urea plant following repairs after an explosion in the gas feed to the plant, which occurred in January. The explosion started a small fire which burned through a power cable, and the plant was down for several weeks while...

New ammonia plant for Suez.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The new Suez industrial zone, already the site of the Egyptian Fertilizer Co's ammonia/urea unit (see Nitrogen & Methanol 249, Jan/Feb 2001, pp3l-43), has also become the proposed location for an export-oriented ammonia plant. The Egypt Basic...

Synetix buys Celanese catalyst business.(CelActiv)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Synetix is continuing its strategy of growth by acquisition with the purchase of the CelActiv catalyst business from German manufacturer Celanese Chemicals Europe. The move follows the purchase of the Hoecat catalyst unit from Celanese in...

Sohar appoints financial advisor.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... Oman's Suhail Bahwan Trading Group has appointed HSBC as financial advisor to its ammonia-urea project, to be built at Sohar, in the north of the country, where a port, refinery complex and pipeline are currently under construction. Project...

NFC appeals for more cash.(National Fertilizer Co.)
March 1, 2001... Thailand's National Fertilizer Company (NFC) has appealed to shareholders for baht 2bn ($46m) of fresh funds over the next three years, baht 1.3bn ($30m) of which are needed immediately if it is to avoid closure this year. NFC's cash flow...

Kemira opens China NPK unit.(Kemira Compound Fertilizer)
March 1, 2001... Kemira Compound Fertilizer has begun production at a 200,000 t/a NPK unit at Zhanjiang, China. The plant -- a joint venture between Finland's Kemira and the local Guangdong Zhanhua Enterprise Group -- will feed speciality crop production in...

Fertinitro [NH.sub.3] trials begin.
March 1, 2001... Venezuela's massive new Fertinitro complex has begun trial production of ammonia at its Jose site. Fertinitro, a joint venture between Pequiven and US producer Koch, has two ammonia-urea trains with a combined capacity of 1.5m t/a of urea.

Indian payments to Omifco are cleared.(Reserve Bank of India)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Reserve Bank of India has cleared US dollar cash payments from the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative and Krishak Bharati Cooperative, the Indian partners in the Oman-India Fertilizer Co (Omifco). The move is good news for the 1.65m t/a...

Hydro reverses bad results.(Hydro Agri)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2001... Hydro Agri has reported a profit of 990m krone ($112m) for 2000, reversing 1999's losses of $250m. The company has been engaged in major cost-cutting and restructuring as part of its 'Agri Turnaround' programme.

Gas prices to fertilizer producers rise.(Gazprom Russian Joint Stock Co.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Gazprom has increased the price of gas supplied to its fertilizer subsidiaries by 15-20%, bringing prices up to a dollar equivalent value of $0.80-0.90/mmBtu. Gazprom is currently part-owner of seven fertilizer companies, including Kemerovo...

Samad to debottleneck ammonia plant.(al-Jubail Fertilizer Co.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The al-Jubail Fertilizer Company (Samad), a 50-50 joint venture between Sabic and the Taiwan Fertilizer Co. has signed an engineering and procurement contract with Swiss-based Ammonia Casale SA to debottleneck its ammonia plant. The project...