Nitrogen & Methanol articles from September 2003

Nitrogen & Methanol archives from September 2003

When is deregulation not deregulation?(Editorial)
September 1, 2003... The power blackouts in New York, eastern Canada and parts of the northeastern US this August have drawn our attention to the complexity of modern living and our total dependence upon electrical power. But they have also begun a period of...

Tight supply pushes prices higher worldwide.(Ammonia)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The ammonia market began to firm again at the end of June. In spite of continuing weak demand in Europe, expectations of US import demand due to plant closures there and summer turnarounds in the FSU both lifted expectations of July prices....

Chinese supply tips market into oversupply.(Urea)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Tightening supply edged urea prices up at the end of June. Maintenance outages in the FSU saw Yuzhnyy prilled rates rise $15/t across the month, ending June at over $140/t f.o.b. Arabian Gulf producers were also tight as AG supply had to cover...

US gas prices keep methanol rates high.(Methanol)
September 1, 2003... The August contract natural gas reference price was settled earlier in the month, at $5.74/mmBtu for Texas, down $0.24/mmBtu from July. Units in Canada and the US Gulf continue to perform at, or near, capacity operations. The cumulative supply...

Price indications.(Price Trends)
September 1, 2003... PRICE INDICATIONS Cash equivalent mid-Jul mid-May mid-Mar mid-Jan Ammonia ($/t) fob Caribbean 170-175 165 255-260 143-146 fob Arab Gulf 154-155 155-158 163-172...

Hydro acquires Kaltenbach-Thuring.(Norway)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Hydro Agri has agreed to buy French technology company Kaltenbach-Thuring for an undisclosed sum. Integration of the two companies' activities are expected to be complete by the end of the year. Hydro has said that the acquisition will not...

Terra shutters Blytheville plant.(United States)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Terra Industries closed its Blytheville, Arkansas ammonia/urea plant at the end of June due to high gas costs and seasonal low nitrogen demand. Some 60 employees, around two thirds of the workforce, were laid off. Blytheville operates 390,000...

Sud-Chemie wins environmental award.(United States)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Sud-Chemie has been presented with the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award by the US Environmental, Protection Agency (EPA). Sud-Chemie received the award for developing a process for manufacturing solid catalysts that use 16-20 times...

Megammonia process scoops award.(United Kingdom)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Institute of Chemical Engineers has awarded their 2nd AstraZeneca Award for Excellence in Green Chemistry and Engineering to Lurgi and Ammonia Casale for their joint Megammonia process at the 10th IChemE award ceremony at Alexandra Palace,...

Methanex buys back Pacific Ammonia.(Canada)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... In one of those strange twists that the ammonia industry sometimes takes, Methanex has decided to buy back the 305,000 t/a Pacific Ammonia plant at Kitimat, British Columbia, which it had sold to Mitsui in 1995 after deciding to exit the...

Police to restart fertilizer infrastructure.(Iraq)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Poland's Zaldady Chemiczne Police will help restart Iraq's ammonia and urea capacity as part of a consortium headed by Nafta Polska, Poland's leading fuel company. The al-Qaim plants were constructed by Polish engineering company Krakow...

IFI plants heading for China.(China)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Following the sale of the nitric acid plant belonging to bankrupt Irish Fertilizer Industries to Kemira Growhow, the other plants at the site have been sold to a Chinese company according to KPMG, who are conducting the sale of assets as part...

New plants and revamps.(China)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Jilin Petrochemical company has started up its new 300,000 t/a ammonia unit at its Calcium Carbide Plant in Jilin. The $195m unit produces ammonia, hydrogen and syngas for the site using Linde technology. Meanwhile, at Guangxi, the Liuzhou...

Bids invited for Kharg Island.(Iran)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Iranian National Petrochemical Corporation (NPC) has invited pre-qualified contractors to submit bids by September 15th for the construction of a 660,000 t/a ammonia and 500,000 t/a methanol plant at Kharg Island. The project was initially...

Burrup Fertilizers progressing on new plants.(Australia)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Following successful completion of the pre-feasibility study, Burrup Fertilizers anticipates a full feasibility study will be complete by the middle of 2004 on two new plants at the site near Karratha in Western Australia. The new proposal is...

Gazprom flexes muscles over fertilizer firms.(Russia)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... A dispute between Gazprom and the Agrochemical Corp. Azot on who owns a 6% stake in Azot has already affected output at Cherepovets, Azot's factory 400km north of Moscow. Nitrogen & Methanol understands that supply problems with gas from...

Gazprom to market Kemerovo.(Russia)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... In an unrelated story, Gazprom has appointed its subsidiary Gazexport as exclusive marketer of nitrogenous fertilizer from Kemerovo Azot JSC in Siberia. The firm operates 700,000 t/a ammonia, 540,000 t/a ammonium nitrate and 470,000 t/a of urea...

Fertilizer plans delayed.(Vietnam)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Vietnam National Chemical Corp (Vinachem) has put back plans to build a 330,000 t/a coal-based ammonia plant at Ha Bac due to problems finding a technology licensor and securing funds. However, the company says that it still intends to...

Snamprogetti to build huge methanol plant.(Nigeria)
September 1, 2003... Snamprogetti has been selected as E & P contractor for the 2.5m t/a methanol plant that will form part of Viva's MTO complex at Lekki near Lagos, Nigeria. Coming in at a massive 7,500 t/d, the methanol plant will be the largest single train...

The death of the gas initiative.(Saudi Arabia)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Two years after its unveiling, amid predictions that it marked the beginning of a new era for Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Natural Gas Initiative appears to have died a natural death. Core Venture 3, the last of the three giant gas projects still in...

Methanex back on Burrup track.(Australia)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Methanex is expecting to confirm revised plans for building a methanol plant on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia any day now. The plant will now be a $500m, 1.3m t/a unit, after plans to build two massive 2.0m t/a plants at the site...

Blue Stream in trouble.(Turkey)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... An argument over gas pricing is threatening to derail the Blue Stream pipeline project, which runs across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey. The $3.4bn pipeline has not been carrying gas since March and talks between the Turkish government...

More GTL proposals.(Qatar)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Qatar Petroleum has agreed with Marathon Oil of the US to conduct a detailed study on a new gas to liquids plant at Ras Laffan, following the completion of a technical study by Marathon. The proposal is for a 120,000 bbl/day plant with a target...

Gas expansions continue.(Iran)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Iran's expansion of its gas and downstream industries continues. Iran has now signed a deal to lay a pipeline across the Gulf to the United Arab Emirates to supply 5bcm per year to Dubai to supply increasing industrial demand. Iran is also...

West-East pipeline nearing completion.(China)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Work is continuing on China's huge West-East pipeline project, intended to bring gas from the fields of the northwest to the rapidly-growing cities of the coast. The first, 1,400km section, from Shaanxi province to Shanghai, is expected to be...

New methanol plant.(China)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Japan's Toyo Engineering Corp (TEC) is to license Johnson Matthey's ICI methanol technology and its proprietary MRF-Z reactor to build a 445,000 t/a methanol plant for Lutianhua at Sichuan Chemical City in Luzhou. The methanol will feed a...

Methanol/DME project starts construction.(China)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Shaanxi Weihe Coal Chemical Corporation has begun construction on a 200,000 t/a coal-based methanol and associated 10,000 t/a dimethyl ether (DME) plant at the company's Weihe site. The $85m project is scheduled to be onstream by 1H 2005,...

Methanol feasibility study.(Brunei)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Itochu and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical (MGC) are among several companies conducting feasibility studies on a series of proposals to build a methanol or ammonia-urea plant at Sungai Liang, Brunei. The studies have been commissioned by the Brunei...

Ethanol on the march.(United States)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The US Senate has voted to include a renewable fuels standard in the comprehensive energy bill that is under consideration at the moment. The provision will require refiners to double their use of fuel ethanol by 2012 and eliminates the 2%...

Natural gas problems.(United States)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The US natural gas industry has blamed environmental regulations for the shortages of gas that the US has been suffering in recent months. Drilling off the east and west coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico has been prohibited by...

Hydrogen filling station in Tokyo.(Japan)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Japan's first liquid hydrogen filling station has opened in Tokyo. The station can dispense liquid hydrogen (L[H.sub.2]) as well as 400 bar compressed gaseous hydrogen (CG[H.sub.2]). The facility will support a test fleet of hydrogen-powered...

Johnson Matthey.(People)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Johnson Matthey has announced that Pelham Hawker, director of the Environmental Catalysts and Technologies division, and Larry Pentz, director of the company's Process Catalysts and Technologies division, will join the board as executive...

Bunge Fertilizers.(People)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Bunge Fertilizers, based in Brazil, has appointed Hunter C Smith as regional chief financial officer for Asia, nased in Singapore. He was previously director of investor relations and global communications, in which post he will be replaced by...

Diary.
September 1, 2003... September 7-9 2003 TFI World Fertilizer Conference, Boston, USA. Contact: Linda McAbee, The Fertilizer Institute, 820 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002, USA. Tel: +1 202 962 0490. Fax:+1 202 962 0577. September 15-18 AIChE...

Users present their perspectives at methanol technology forum: now under the stewardship of Johnson Matthey following their purchase of Synetix, the Seventh ICI Methanol Technology Operators' Forum (IMTOF) was held at the Langham Hilton hotel from June 9th-11th.(IMTOF '03)
September 1, 2003... The name may change but the conference continues! The company licensing ICI methanol technology has altered from ICI Katalco to Synetix and now Johnson Matthey, but the IMTOF forum, now ensconsed in its familiar home of London, continues to...

Nitric acid absorption columns: a nitric acid absorption column is a pressure vessel, a mass transfer device and heat exchanger all rolled into one. Nowadays some of them are also very big indeed.(Buyers' Guide)
September 1, 2003... Even expressed in its simplest terms, the chemistry of nitric acid formation from nitrogen dioxide and water is not nearly as simple as that of sulphuric acid formation from sulphur trioxide or thermal phosphoric acid from phosphorus pentoxide....

Does AN have a future? The aftermath of the Toulouse explosion and fears of terrorist misuse have seen countries worldwide beginning to tighten regulations on ammonium nitrate. In such a climate, does ammonium nitrate have a future?(Ammonium Nitrate)
September 1, 2003... Ammonium nitrate has been popular as a fertilizer since the 1920s. However, first AN's share of total fertilizer use, and, since 1989, AN's absolute level of demand have begun to fall, initially because of the take-up of urea in the developing...

Relocation: opportunities and challenges: although the attraction of relocating a manufacturing facility is the lower cost of the major equipment items, many other issues must be borne in mind. Here, Ahmad Kusha of HPI Project Managers discusses reasons and methodologies for relocating chemical plants.(Plant Relocation)
September 1, 2003... The idea of acquiring an existing idle production facility or a complete but uncommissioned project for relocation to a new site, in order to enjoy lower feedstock prices and/or market logistics is not a new one. The archives of chemical...

A proactive approach to reformer tube replacement.(Ammonia Technology)
September 1, 2003... Venkat Pattabathula and Don Timbres of Agrium Inc discuss techniques used at Agrium's Borger ammonia plant to predict reformer tube failure, including ultrasonic attenuation, eddy current response, wall thickness and profilometry (outside...

Technology for today's nitric acid market: the main contemporary issues for the nitric acid industry are suppressing emissions of nitrous oxide and boosting the output strength of normal plants to azeotropic concentration for non-fertilizer use. Luis Marzo shows how ESPINDESA has addressed them in its design for a new plant in China.(Nitric Acid Production)
September 1, 2003... In the last few years, ESPINDESA has been directing its development effort in nitric acid technology towards attaining two objectives demanded by the market: low [N.sub.2]O tail gas emissions and azeotropic acid production. An 866-t/d...

Catalyst makers address the [N.sub.2]O challenge; nitric acid producers would like to be able to suppress nitrous oxide formation in the ammonia oxidation reactor and therefore avoid the expense and maintenance requirement of additional tail gas treatment. There's a little way to go yet.(Nitric Acid)
September 1, 2003... It is only in the last few years that the deleterious potential of nitrous oxide ("laughing gas" of dinitrogen oxide, [N.sub.2]O)--in the environment has been appreciated. Nitrous oxide is not destroyed or removed by any known process in the...