Nitrogen & Methanol articles from November 1999

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from November 1999

Looking to the future.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... In a few short weeks we will know whether the so-called O Milennium BugO has been as problematic as some fear, or merely something else that we worried too much about. The Central Intelligence AgencyOs estimates, according to its website...

PRICE TRENDS.(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... AMMONIA Tight supply pushes market higher While by the start of September sentiment seemed to be that the bull run in ammonia prices was over, plant outages in Alaska and Brazil and production cutbacks in the Ukraine kept prices...

AN dumping claim upheld.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has found that there is a reasonable indication that cheap imports of Russian ammonium nitrate are causing harm to the domestic fertilizer industry. The ruling follows a petition filed by the...

Congress moves on class actions.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The House of Representatives has voted to approve a bill which will transfer most class action lawsuits to Federal courts. The move is aimed to end the 'lottery' of actions through state courts, which often leads to lawyers 'shopping around' to...

Urea duties likely.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The Mexican government is nerving itself to impose anti-dumping duties of up to 210% against urea from Russia and from US supplier Unocal. The move is likely to push up domestic prices and so be unpopular with farmers, and so is unlikely to be...

Kafco restructuring talks continue.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Debottlenecking of the Karnaphuli Fertilizer Co (Kafco) ammonia-urea complex is to proceed in two stages according to a company spokesman. The first phase, which will raise capacity from 570,000 t/a to 660,000 t/a, will be undertaken in...

TEC wins BCIC revamp contract.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Toyo Engineering Co (TEC) has been awarded a $52m contract to refurbish the Bangladesh Chemical Industry Corporation's ammonia/urea complex at Ghorasal, near Dakar. The 470,000 t/a facility, built in 1972 and previously revamped in 1988, will...

Indian government asked to shoulder entire risk.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... In yet another attempt to salvage the troubled 1.5m t/a Oman-India ammonia-urea complex, the Indian government is now being asked to guarantee the purchase of all urea from the plant at a pre-arranged price for up to 10-15 years. The move is...

Construction starts at Aceh urea plant.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Work is continuing on the $260m, 570,000 t/a ammonia-urea plant being built by Toyo Engineering Go (TEC) for PT Pupuk Iskandar Muda at Lhokseumawe in Aceh, northern Sumatra. Design work and site preparation is now complete and construction has...

Toyo win urea granulation contract.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Toyo Engineering Co (TEC) has won a contract to supply urea granulation technology to Lutianhua (LTH) in China. LTH operates two prilled urea plants in Luzhou, Sichuan province, with capacities of 250,000 t/a and 530,000 t/a respectively. The...

New NPK plant for China.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Kaltenbach-Thuring has been awarded a contract to build a urea-based NPK plant for the China National Chemical Construction Corporation at Qihar, Heilongjiang Province. The 300,000 t/a facility is due to start up at the end of 2000.

Twenty die in Thai AN explosion.(ammonium nitrate)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... At least 20 people were killed in an explosion near Chiang Mai on September 19th, and another 100 injured, according to Associated Press reports. The explosion ripped through the Hong Thai fruit processing factory, leaving a 15m crater. A large...

Burmese urea plant now at 80%.(Myanmar Petrochemical Enterprise)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Myanmar Petrochemical Enterprise's 200,000 t/a urea plant is now operating at 80% capacity following a recent revamp by Chiyoda, according to MPE. Revamps of MPE's three other urea plants, of 150,000 t/a, 150,000 t/a and 68,000 t/a capacity...

Saudi contract award postponed again.
November 1, 1999... The award of construction contracts for the 495,000 t/a United Jubail off-gas ammonia plant has been put back until at least the second half of next year because of poor international ammonia prices.

Hopes for progress on reforms.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... With India's new BJP-led government installed with a renewed majority, hopes are high that the country's stalled economic reforms may now begin moving again. The privatisation programme has already shown signs of life, with Rashtriya Chemicals...

Coromandel to sell urea plant.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Coromandel Fertilizers Ltd has placed its 130,000 t/a naphtha-based urea plant on the market, following the company's decision to exit nitrogen fertilizer production. All ammonia and urea production at the site stopped two years ago due to high...

Profertil on course for mid 2000 start-up.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Argentina's new ammonia-urea complex at Bahia Blanca is now 75% complete, and commissioning is expected from March next year, several months ahead of schedule (see picture). At 1,070,000 t/a the plant will be the world's largest single train...

SPIC plant "to be ready by end 2000".(Southern Petrochemicals Industries Corp.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... India's Southern Petrochemicals Industries Co (SPIC), owner of a second-hand ammonia-urea plant that is to be rebuilt at Jebel Ali in the UAE, says that the units should be up and running by the end of next year. The plant should produce...

Gloom at EFMA AGM.(European Fertilizer Manufacturers' Association, annual meeting)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Helmuth Aldinger, director general of the European Fertilizer Manufacturers' Association (EFMA), gave a gloomy appraisal of the European industry's prospects at the organisation's annual meeting in early October. Nitrogen consumption fell by...

Terra cuts AN production.(Terra Nitrogen UK, ammonium nitrate)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Terra Nitrogen UK has announced a 40% cut in production at its ammonium nitrate plants at Billingham and Severnside. Terra said that stock levels had risen higher than expected due to the strength of the British pound, making its exports less...

Fertilizer use down.(in the UK)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Application rates of nitrogen fertilizer in the UK fell by 5kg/ha for field crops and 14kg/ha for grassland in 1998. The former was due to lower applications to cereals and oilseed rape; the latter has been blamed on the summer's wet weather...

FMA speaks out on energy tax.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... At the UK Fertilizer Manufacturers' Association annual dinner, FMA president William Tooley said that while the prospect of a fertilizer tax seemed to have faded away, the next challenge for the industry would be the government's proposed...

Earthquake shuts down Isgas.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Turkey's devastating eathquake has caused the closure of the country's sole urea unit until at least the end of 1999, after the plant receivd "serious damage", particularly in some of the aftershocks. The Isgas plant, which had been idled for...

China may open grain markets.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... China has given its first indications that it may abandon its policy of self-sufficiency in food production; the so-called 'iron rice bowl' strategy which it has pursued since the Revolution. In an OECD-sponsored report on Chinese agriculture,...

Plenty River starts detailed survey.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... The Plenty River Corporation, intending to build a 760,000 t/a ammonia-urea complex in conjunction with Indian JV partner Chambal Fertilizers, has begun a detailed cost survey of the project. Two sites are under consideration; the original...

Methanex reports smaller losses.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Methanol giant Methanex has made a loss of $10.2m for the third quarter of 1999, it was revealed this October. This compares to a loss of $20.8m for the same period last year, and a loss of $23.1m for the second quarter of 1999. Although the...

Third methanol plant reaches bid stage.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Iran has issued tenders for its third methanol plant. At time of writing, bids had been received from Snamprogetti (using Haldor Tospoe technology), Toyo Engineering Co (TEC) and Lurgi for the provision of engineering, procurement and...

Pipeline to Israel may run offshore.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Plans for a pipeline to run between Egypt and Israel have taken another step forward. Italy's ENI and Anglo-American BP Amoco, both of whom are developing Egypt's gas fields, have been in discussions with Israel and come up with a route which...

Gas shortages kill methanol, ammonia plans.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... China has abandoned plans to build a 500,000 t/a methanol plant and 400,000 t/a ammonia plant on Hainan Island because of insufficient natural gas feedstock being available. The majority of the gas will now be required for power production and...

Methanol 'in pumps by 2004'.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Ford and DaimlerChrysler are urging oil companies to have liquid methanol pumps and tanks available at gasoline stations from 2004 to feed the first generation of fuel cell vehicles. The move is part of a growing momentum for methanol use in...

Pipeline race still running.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The various competing projects to bring gas to Turkey are still furiously racing to be there first, with politics as ever a complicating factor. The Gazprom/Eni Blue Stream project, which will cross the Black Sea, and which many had written off...

Georgia Gulf to close methanol plant.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Another casualty of the slump in methanol prices emerged in September, with US-based Georgia Gulf permanently discontinuing methanol production, taking an $8m charge to write off its operations. Georgia Gulf, with a nameplate capacity of...

Qafac start-up now set for October.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The Qatar Fuel Additives Company (Qafac) has said that its methanol-MTBE complex at Umm Said will now start up in October. Qafac is a joint venture between Taiwanese-based China Petroleum Corp and Lee Chang Yung Chemicals, local firm Qatar...

Methanor to buy Saturn methanol offtake.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The huge 850,000 t/a Saturn methanol plant, due to come onstream early in 2000, has agreed a 150,000 t/a supply contract with Netherlands producer Methanor. The Dutch company has, however, denied speculation that it intends to close capacity in...

Chile III complete.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Kvaerner has announced the completion of Methanex's third methanol train in Chile. The huge 975,000 t/a plant will be one of the lowest-cost facilities in the world, and has displaced some of Methanex's older plants in the US and Canada.

In Salah takes a step forward.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... BP Amoco and Algeria's Sonatrach, joint developers of the giant In Salah gas field in the south of the country, have selected contractors for the $2.3bn project. Front end engineering and design and construction of all field facilities will be...

Mitsubishi considering new methanol plant?(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Mitsubishi Gas Chemicals (MGC) is reportedly considering building a new methanol plant to replace the 260,000 t/a unit that it sold to Mongolia last year. The plant was mothballed because of a shortage of natural gas, but MGC says that it is...

MTBE phase-out may be relaxed.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Californian governor Gray Davis has signed a bill which proposes that major methanol derivative methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) be phased out "as soon as possible" rather than 2002 as originally decreed. The alteration to the timetable has come...

People.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... Eric Jan de Widt has been appointed president of Stamicarbon BV in the Netherlands. He succeeds Roelof Mulder, who has relocated to DSM Gist in Delft. Mr de Widt has had a long career in engineering and project management, and was previously...

Sabic company profile.(Company Profile)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Since its inception in 1976, the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) has grown to become one of the largest petrochemical producers in the world, with major shares of global urea and methanol trade. Nitrogen & Methanol takes an...

Sixth Grove fuel cells symposium.
November 1, 1999... After more than 150 years in the doldrums, fuel cells are finally beginning to make a serious impact in the energy sector -- both in power generation and in transport applications. The needs of fuel cell systems is now one of the drivers of...

Methanol project listing 1999.(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Methanol project listing 1999 Contractor Licensor Company ALGERIA n.a. n.a. ...

Ammonium nitrate producers' study group meeting.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... The Ammonium Nitrate Producers' Study Group (ANPSG) held its annual meeting in Vail, Colorado from October 11th-14th 1999. Bill Stamp of Royster-Clarke Nitrogen, Gordon Collis of Simplot Canada and Scott Kellogg of PCS Nitrogen organised...

The integrated approach.(ammonium nitrate synthesis)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... Apart from the obvious problem of corrosion, the main challenges in ammonium nitrate synthesis are improving energy-efficiency and meeting tighter pollution control standards. Here, Philippe Lion, of Kaltenbach-Thuring SA (Beauvais, France),...

Looking to technology.(methanol industry)(Statistical Data Included)
November 1, 1999... With the impending disappearance of MTBE exacerbating an already weak market, methanol producers have to hope that technological development will accelerate the growth of alternative end-use markets and help them to chip a bit more off...

Saudi contract award postponed again.(Brief Article)
November 1, 1999... The award of construction contracts for the 495,000 t/a United Jubail off-gas ammonia plant has been put back until at least the second half of next year because of poor international ammonia prices.