Nitrogen & Methanol articles from March 2005

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from March 2005

No longer just a waste gas.(EDITORIAL)
March 1, 2005... Following ratification by Russia on November 18th last year, the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change finally came into force on February 18th this year. It has now been adopted by 141 countries, representing 61% of...

Ammonia market crashes on oversupply.(AMMONIA)
March 1, 2005... Ammonia prices appeared to have peaked at the end of December and began a drastic slide in all major markets. With storage space at a premium in the US and buyers unwilling to be tempted into the market at any price, the US market was...

Urea market defies gravity.(UREA)
March 1, 2005... Urea prices rallied slightly over the New Year period due to buying from India, but sluggish demand, especially west of Suez, kept prices in a general downward trend during January. Yuzhnyy prices dropped from $195/t f.o.b. to about $182/t,...

High gas prices and supply limitations keep prices high.(METHANOL)
March 1, 2005... The March contract natural gas reference price was settled early in the month, at $6.09/mmBtu for Texas, and $6.41/mmBtu for Louisiana, up $0.05 on average from the February contract price. The methanol market seems to be making a smooth...

UAN imports can continue.(UNITED STATES)
March 1, 2005... Russian and Ukrainian producers are free to continue exporting UAN to the US after the US Court of International Trade rejected an appeal from the Nitrogen Solutions Fair Trading Committee (NSFTC), which consists of, among others, CF...

Agrium to close Kenai.(UNITED STATES)
March 1, 2005... Canada's Agrium has confirmed that it will close its Kenai urea complex in Alaska by the end of October this year if it is not able to find a new gas supply. Agrium purchased the Kenai complex from Unocal in 2000, but wrangles over gas prices...

AN suffering from security environment.(UNITED STATES)
March 1, 2005... Ammonium nitrate is facing an uncertain future in the US as new regulations on storage and transport of the compound come into force. The states of Nevada, California and Oklahoma all have new regulations under consideration which would make...

Ammonia may get additive.(UNITED STATES)
March 1, 2005... After a series of problems relating to theft of anhydrous ammonia for use in methamphetamine production, including a series of shootouts at some storage facilities, the US is considering treating ammonia for agricultural use with an additive to...

Simplot to stop selling AN.(CANADA)
March 1, 2005... JR Simplot has announced that it will no longer sell ammonium nitrate after the spring season. The company is only one of several North American producers trying to distance themselves from AN over fears of its misuse in terrorist action and...

Qafco to build fifth ammonia-urea plant.(QATAR)
March 1, 2005... Qafco has signed a letter of intent with Yara over the construction of a 1.0m t/a ammonia and 1.1m t/a urea plant. The Qafco V project has been made possible by a new 25-year gas contract signed between the two partners and Qatar Petroleum in...

Sinochem Hong Kong to buy its own parent company.(CHINA)
March 1, 2005... Sinochem Hong Kong Holdings Ltd said it will acquire the fertilizer operations from Sinochem Corporation, its Chinese parent company for $632m, in a 'reverse takeover'. The move will effectively transform Sinochem HK into a listing vehicle for...

DneproAzot to build $16m ammonia pipeline.(UKRAINE)
March 1, 2005... Ukraine's DneproAzot is to construct a pipeline to transport ammonia from its production site at Dneprodzerhinsk to the main Togliatti-Gorlovka-Odessa pipeline. The project, for which construction is expected to start in April, envisages the...

Investors desert Asean Aceh.(INDONESIA)
March 1, 2005... The governments of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have indicated their intention to withdraw their shareholdings in Indonesia's PT Asean Aceh Fertilizer (AAF). Aceh's 600,000t/a urea plant at Lhoksuemawe, in the Aceh province, has been shut...

Nippon Kasei takes over Mitsubishi nitrogen plants.(JAPAN)
March 1, 2005... Mitsubishi Chemical has transferred its nitrogen operations to its Nippon Kasei subsidiary. This includes six plants in Niigata and twelve in Kurosaki, capable of producing a range of products including ammonia, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate,...

New nitric acid plant.(HUNGARY)
March 1, 2005... Nitrogenmuvek has signed a contract with Czech engineering company Chemprojeckt to build a new nitric acid plant at the company's Petfurdo site with a capacity of 495,000 t/a, replacing older units which have been operating since 1975, which...

China's coal-based methanol spree continues.(CHINA)
March 1, 2005... An 80,000 t/a methanol plant based on coke oven gas has began production at the end of 2004 at the CNPC Qingyang Refining and Chemical Company's site at Qujing in Yunnan province. The company has $55m plans to build a downstream DMA unit and a...

Topsoe awarded two methanol contracts.(CHINA)
March 1, 2005... Haldor Topsoe A/S has received two contracts in China for the supply of methanol technology. The first is a new 330,000 t/a methanol plant for Petrochina's Golmud Oil Refinery, located in Qinghai Province. The plant will be based on steam...

New mega methanol facility.(IRAN)
March 1, 2005... The Kaveh Methanol Company has signed an engineering and procurement contract with Methanol Casale and the Iranian Petrochemical Industries Design and Engineering Company (PIDEC) for the construction of a $520m 2.24m t/a methanol facility at...

New methanol project proposal.(INDIA)
March 1, 2005... Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals (GSFC) is conducting a feasibility study on a 130,000 t/a methanol plant at the company's site at Baroda in Gujarat, where GSFC already operates a fertilizer and petrochemical complex. The plans are...

Pipeline plans in trouble again.(INDIA)
March 1, 2005... The troubled project to import gas to India from Iran via Pakistan has suffered more setbacks after a series of terrorist bombings in Pakistan and escalating project costs due to difficult terrain and security considerations. Pakistan is also...

Salalah methanol gets new investors.(OMAN)
March 1, 2005... UK firm GTL Resources, which has been developing a 990,000 t/a methanol project at Salalah in Oman has signed an agreement with the Mubadala Development Company, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, and the Oman Oil Company, together with...

The UK's Agriculture Industries Confederation.(People)
March 1, 2005... The UK's Agriculture Industries Confederation (AIC) deputy chief executive officer, David Heather was recently awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the Queen of England for services to the industry. He has spent 26 years in the...

DSM.(People)
March 1, 2005... DSM has appointed two new members to the Royal DSM Supervisory Board, subject to approval at the next general shareholder meeting on 6 April. Claudio Sonder worked for Hoechst from 1966 to 1999 holding various posts in Germany and Brazil and...

Diary.(Calendar)
March 1, 2005... April 3-5 2005 Phosphate 2005 Conference & Exhibition, Paris, France. Contact: Conference Administrator, British Sulphur Publishing Ltd, 31 Mount Pleasant, London WC1X 0AD, UK. Tel: +44 20 7903 2010. Fax: +44 20 7903 2432. ...

Gas is the challenge for Indonesia: David Hayes reports on how parts of Indonesia's urea industry are facing a growing scarcity of affordable natural gas feedstock as local demand for gas continues to rise and subsidies are withdrawn.
March 1, 2005... Indonesia's nitrogen fertilizer industry is facing challenging times due to significant changes in the domestic natural gas supply situation over the past few years. The Arun gas field in northern Sumatra, which supplies gas for methanol/urea...

Towards a greener fertilizer industry: Dr M.P. Sukumaran Nair of Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) Ltd discusses developments in the nitrogenous fertilizer industry towards achieving the twin goals of more efficient production while meeting environmental quality requirements.(ENVIRONMENT)
March 1, 2005... Over the past fifty years there has been a step-by-step development in the fertilizer producer's approach to environmental issues. After the early days of ignoring effluents and discharges to the environment, efforts were made to dilute...

Adblue hits the streets: new European diesel quality regulations have led to a new source of demand for urea; as the basis of a selective catalytic reduction system called AdBlue, which is being rolled out across Europe this year.(ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY)
March 1, 2005... European vehicle emissions standards for heavy duty trucks and buses have been steadily tightening since the introduction of the 'Euro I' standard in 1992. In October 2005, the latest tightening of the regulations, 'Euro IV', will come into...

Snamprogetti urea symposium: from 12th-15th October, Snamprogetti hosted its 4th Urea Users Symposium in the resort of Giardini Naxos on Sicily. Some 100 delegates from 18 countries attended.(SYMPOSIUM REPORT)
March 1, 2005... Every day 132,000 tonnes of nitrogenous fertilizer are produced by urea plants which use Snamprogetti technology. Snamprogetti technology differs from competitors in being based on the use of excess ammonia to avoid corrosion as well as promote...

The mammoth approaches: practical concerns such as fabrication and logistical limits on equipment sizes and the need to convince the industry and its financiers are shaping the evolution of 5,000-t/d single-stream urea plant designs.(UREA TECHNOLOGY)
March 1, 2005... At each stage in the evolution of the process for synthesising urea from ammonia and carbon dioxide--the introduction first of partial recycle, then of total recycle and, finally, of stripping in the HP loop--the efficiency and economics of the...

Largest KRES reformer in service in China: faced with natural gas supply curtailments, Liaoning Huajin Tongda Chemicals Co. has cut its gas requirements by 29% by replacing its conventional steam reformer with KBR's KRES heat exchange reforming system and a coal-fired auxiliary boiler.(AMMONIA REVAMPING)
March 1, 2005... Liaoning Huajin Tongda Chemicals Co Ltd. (former Shenzhen Liaohe Tongda Chemicals Co. Ltd.) has been operating a 1,000-t/d ammonia plant based on KBR technology since 1978 at Panjin City in Liaoning Province, China. The plant, which generated...