NextChem to supply equipment for nitrogen plants

NextChem says that its subsidiaries Stamicarbon and KT Tech have been awarded licensing, process design package (PDP) and critical equipment supply contracts for the development of three world-scale complexes, two of them dedicated to granular urea production, and one integrating ammonia and methanol co-production, for an undisclosed “major client in West Africa”. The contracts are all based on proprietary technologies.

The overall package is worth €485 million, of which €10 million related to engineering activities already started will be recognised in the preFID phase, and the remaining part at Final Investment Decision. The two large-scale nitrogen fertilizer plants will consist of four hydrogen units based on NX AdWinHydrogen® technology, four ammonia units based on NX STAMI™ Ammonia technology, four urea-melt trains and six urea-granulation units based on NX STAMI™ Urea technology for an overall urea production above 3 million tonnes per annum. NX AdWinHydrogen® autothermal reforming (ATR) produces syngas at the scale needed for the downstream plants. NX STAMI™ Urea technology is aimed at reducing steam consumption and improving energy efficiency while producing high-quality urea granules.

The third plant combines 900,000 t/a of ammonia capacity and 600,000 t/a of methanol capacity co-production, using NextChem’s autothermal reforming-based NX AdWin® Combined technology; a large-scale high-pressure ATR technology for sequential/parallel methanol and ammonia production. NX AdWinHydrogen® and NX AdWin® Combined were both developed by GasConTec, NextChem’s subsidiary dedicated to low-carbon hydrogen and methanol solutions.

Fabio Fritelli, Managing Director of NextChem, commented: “This is a landmark award, which leverages NextChem’s integrated expertise across the hydrogen, ammonia, urea, and methanol value chains. It reinforces our position as a leading technology partner for large, integrated industrial projects, demonstrating the scalability and complementarity of our proprietary technologies.”