Nitrogen & Methanol articles from May 2004

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from May 2004

Winners and losers in the new Europe.(Editorial)
May 1, 2004... On May 1st the European Union gained ten new member states and 74 million more people, with the accession of the so-called EU-10; Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The...

Price crash reaches bottom.(Ammonia)
May 1, 2004... Ammonia prices continued their steep fall during March, as demand remained weak and buyers were holding out for further price decreases. Yuzhnyy prices had already passed $200/t f.o.b. by the start of the month, and they fell still further,...

Prices stable in quiet market.(Urea)
May 1, 2004... Lack of demand and a reluctance by buyers to accept higher prices led to urea prices stagnating through March. In Latin America, there was little buying interest from Brazil and FSU prilled urea faced stiff competition from Venezeulan granular...

Prices remain steady.(Methanol)
May 1, 2004... The May contract natural gas reference price was settled early in the month, at $5.91/mmBtu for Texas, and $6.04/mmBtu for Louisiana, up $0.43/mmBtu on average from the April contract price. Clearly, demand remains strong in the US, and...

Plenty River wins right to build Dampier plant.(Australia)
May 1, 2004... Plenty River and its partner Thiess have won the rights to the land on the Burrup Peninsula where they hope to build the Dampier Nitrogen project. Following the lapse of the original project development agreement, partners Plenty River and...

Incitec Pivot removes FGAN from market.(Australia)
May 1, 2004... Incitec Pivot has announced that it will no longer supply ammonium nitrate to the Australian fertilizer market. The move follows Australian government proposals to tighten regulations concerning the sale and storage of fertilizer grade ammonium...

Japanese-led consortium wins NPC contract.(Iran)
May 1, 2004... The Iranian National Petrochemical Corporation (NPC) has awarded the $237m construction contract for its new ammonia-urea plant to a Japanese consortium consisting of Toyo Engineering Corporation (TEC), Chiyoda and Mitsui of Japan and the...

Enaex plant halted by gas troubles.(Chile)
May 1, 2004... Chilean explosives manufacturer Enaex has put its $100m plans to relocate an ammonia and urea plant on hold after the Argentinean government said that it intended to ration trans-Andean natural gas supplies to Chile. Argentina has cut Chile's...

Koch buys CNC marketing rights.(Trinidad & Tobago)
May 1, 2004... Koch Nitrogen Co has acquired outright the rights to market the Caribbean Nitrogen Company's (CNC) ammonia production, as well as a 15% stake in the company, for an undisclosed sum. The rights and shareholding were previously owned by Duke...

Sabic posts record results for 2003.(Saudi Arabia)
May 1, 2004... On April 1st, Sabic's General Assembly paid dividends of $960m to shareholders, representing 24% of the company's capital, following a record year for productivity, market development, technology and profitability. In 2003 Sabic achieved record...

MissChem to close melamine and urea at Donaldsonville.(United States)
May 1, 2004... Mississippi Chemicals has announced the permanent closure of its melamine and urea operation and its No. 1 ammonia facility, all located at Triad Nitrogen, LLC in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. The plants to be closed will be idled by the end of...

Department of Commerce upholds finding on nitric phosphates.(United States)
May 1, 2004... The US Department of Commerce has ruled that ammonium nitrate import restrictions do apply to so-called 'nitric phosphates' from Russia, also known as '33-3' for their nitrogen and phosphorus content. The ruling confirms an interim judgement...

Uhde integrates ThyssenKrupp EnCoke.(Germany)
May 1, 2004... Uhde has integrated the business of sister company ThyssenKrupp EnCoke into its own operations. The 150 employees of ThyssenKrupp EnCoke will move from Bochum to Uhde's Dortmund HQ. The aim is to add coke plant technologies to the Uhde's...

China urges price controls.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... China urges price controls. China's National Development and Reform Commission has recommended the stepping up of price controls for both imported and domestically produced fertilizers, as part of an overall bid to increase income levels and...

Qafco IV comes on-stream.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... Qafco IV comes on-stream. The Qatar Fertilizer Company (Qafco) has inaugurated its Qafco IV ammonia-urea unit at Mesaieed, and commercial production is due to begin in mid-May. The complex includes a 660,000 t/a ammonia and 1.15m t/a urea...

Johnson Matthey acquires AMC.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... Johnson Matthey acquires AMC. Johnson Matthey has acquired the AMC Group of companies, a market leader in Sponge Nickel catalysts, for $43 million. AMC is based in Tennessee and mainly focused on the pharmaceutical and speciality chemicals...

Farmland sells Coffeyville plant.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... Farmland sells Coffeyville plant. Bankrupt US fertilizer producer Farmland Industries has completed the sale of its Coffeyville, Kansas refinery and fertilizer plant to Connecticut-based venture capital firm Pegasus Partners. Pegasus, which...

Gas scuppers Russian WTO negotiations.(Russia)
May 1, 2004... Russia has given up hope of joining the World Trade Organization this year, according to its chief negotiator, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Maxim Medvedkov. Medvelkov said that at the current pace of negotiations, which are...

Gas development licenses awarded.(Saudi Arabia)
May 1, 2004... In March Saudi Arabia awarded the first three gas development licenses for three blocks in the southeast of the country, to Russia's Lukoil, China's Sinpoec, and a European consortium consisting of Eni and Repsol respectively. The move follows...

Methanol joint venture pressing ahead.(Oman)
May 1, 2004... The companies hoping to set up a methanol joint venture at Sohar in Oman are moving forward with their plans. In December the Oman Methanol Company was officially incorporated. The company is a joint venture between Methanol Holdings Trinidad...

Dash for LNG continues.(China)
May 1, 2004... Like India and the US, China is in its own dash to develop as many LNG import terminals as it can over the next few years. The first terminal, at Guangdong, is currently under construction but has dropped behind schedule and is unlikely to be...

Methanol capacity building continues.(China)
May 1, 2004... China continues to expand its methanol production. Several new plants are under consideration or construction. The largest will be built by the Heilongjiang Hefang Mining Group and Dalian Huafeng Enterprise Group, who have signed a contract on...

Ethanol pilot tests expanded.(China)
May 1, 2004... China is to expand its pilot programmes of blending ethanol into gasoline to produce so-called 'gasohol'. Pilot tests began in Zhengzhou, Louyang, and Nanyang in Henan Province and in Harbin and Zhaodong in Heilongjiang Province in June 2002...

More GTL planned.(Qatar)
May 1, 2004... Qatar Petroleum and Sasol-Chevron have signed agreements to dramatically expand gas to liquids (GTL) production in the country. At present the partners are working on the 34,000 bbl/day Oryx GTL plant at Ras Laffan, which is due to come...

Lurgi wins NPC contract.(Iran)
May 1, 2004... Lurgi has been awarded a [euro]160m ($190m) contract to build the new 1.7m t/a mega-methanol plant for Iran's Zagros Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC). The plant will be built at the Bandar...

New hydrogen plant.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... New hydrogen plant. The Finnish company Fortum Oil and Gas Oy, the operator of Scandinavia's biggest refinery, has commissioned Uhde to design and supply equipment for a new hydrogen plant. The 155,000 Nm3/hour plant will be built at Porvoo,...

Acetic acid plant.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... Acetic acid plant. China's Sinopec has begun a 50-50 joint venture with BP to build a world-scale 500,000 t/a acetic acid plant in Nanjing, using BP's own technology. BP says that the move is part of a change in its China strategy, following...

Fuel cell 'marathon'.(News in Brief)
May 1, 2004... Fuel cell 'marathon'. General Motors is to run a modified Opel Zafira 10,000km across Europe in May and June in a 'marathon' that the company says will prove its hydrogen fuel cell technology. The modified car will start in Hammerfest, Norway...

Kemira.(People)
May 1, 2004... Kemira has re-elected Anssi Soila as chairman and Eija Malmivirta as vice chairman of the group. New members elected to the board were managing director Heikki Bergholm and site manager Kaija Pehu-Lehtonen. Member of parliament Aulis...

Jan Reinas.(People)
May 1, 2004... Norsk Hydro has elected Jan Reinas as the new chair of the board of directors as of March 25th. Reinas replaces Egil Myklebust, who had been a member of the board for 12 years, the past three as chairman. Reinas was CEO of the paper group...

Terje Freistad.(People)
May 1, 2004... Terje Freistad was also elected as a member of Norsk Hydro's board. He will be the employee representative, and replaces Steinar Skarstein, who is leaving for newly spun-off Yara International.

Diary.(Calendar)
May 1, 2004... June 10-11 2004 International Methanol Producers and Consumers Association 16th Mini Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Contact: IMPCA secretariat, Avenue de Tervuren 149, Tervurenlaan, B1150 Brussels. Tel: +32 2 7418683. ...

Nitrogen 2004 conference report: the Nitrogen 2004 international conference and exhibition, organised by British Sulphur publishing, was held at the Arabella Sheraton grand hotel, Munich, Germany, from Sunday 21st March to Wednesday 24th March 2004.(Nitrogen 2004 conference)
May 1, 2004... The run of high product prices helped to put the nitrogen and methanol industries in buoyant mood as they met in Munich earlier this year, and the meeting was one of the best attended for many years. However, the looming threat of capacity...

India's urea demand set to rise: David Hayes talks to the Fertilizer Association of India about the current situation for the urea industry in the country and the prospects for the future.(India)
May 1, 2004... India is forecasting a 25% increase in urea consumption over the next five years, reversing the recent trend of declining urea use since the late 1990s. The forecast increase in urea demand assumes that there will be an improvement in recently...

Middle Eastern fertilizer update: the Middle East is so closely connected to the Asian fertilizer market that it is often considered an adjunct of it, and the region forms a major source of nitrogen supply to east Asia. Nitrogen & Methanol reviews developments there over the past couple of years.
May 1, 2004... The past year or so has not been kind to the Middle East; war and terrorism have served to remind people of the potential political risk there just as the world has been passing through a period of reduced economic growth. US attitudes to the...

It can be done: though older and smaller than many of its competitors in the region, GPIC's ammonia-urea/methanol complex in Bahrain is profitable and trouble-free, and it has a string of environmental, safety and general excellence awards to its credit. Nitrogen & Methanol recently had the privilege of visiting this remarkable enterprise.(Site Visit)
May 1, 2004... Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co. (GPIC) was formed in 1979 as an equal-share joint venture between the governments of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (represented by SABIC) and Kuwait (represented by PIC) with the objective of utilising Bahrain's...

High pressure loop revamping in [CO.sub.2] stripping plants: federico zardi of Urea Casale explains a new low-cost modification to [CO.sub.2] stripping plants that provides debottlenecking options during revamps.(Urea Technology)
May 1, 2004... Urea Casale SA is a sister company of Ammonia Casale SA, established in 1991 to carry on the urea technology activities started by Ammonia Casale in 1985. Since its inception, efforts were mainly directed to the revamping of existing plants,...