Category: Industrial

Due to an increasingly challenging market, Nyrstar will indefinitely lower production at its Hobart zinc smelter in Tasmania by around 25%. The plant’s zinc capacity is 280,000 t/a. “This decision follows a thorough and extensive review and is a direct response to deteriorating market conditions and financial losses being sustained by Nyrstar Australia,” the Trafiguraowned company said. “Nyrstar’s Australian assets continue to face significant financial challenges due to several external factors including worsening conditions in raw material markets, negative treatment charges and increased costs.”

Two dam failures at the Morowali industrial park in Indonesia have killed three people. On March 16, during heavy rains, the PT Huayue Nickel Cobalt tailings storage facility at the Morowali industrial park failed, and tailings flowed into the Bahadopi River. The breach flooded facilities at the industrial park and the village of Labota. Five days later another tailings dam inside the industrial park, owned by PT Qing Mei Bang (QMB) New Energy Materials, collapsed, killing three workers. The affected tailings facilities store acidic waste from high pressure acid leaching (HPAL). It is estimated that for every ton of nickel, HPAL processing generates 150-200 tons of tailings. The affected facilities use filtered tailings, where some of the water is removed from the tailings before they are placed the dam. However, heavy rains, landslips and seismic activity appear to have affected the stability of some of the dams.

• Continuing oversupply means that ammonia prices should continue to come under pressure moving into 2H April, though it remains to be seen just how much further values in Asia can decline before producers begin to shutter output.

Methanol demand is rising again after a few years of relative stagnation, but with the Chinese MTO boom largely over, it looks to be energy uses which will drive most future demand.

In mid-April, Ammonia prices both east and west of Suez remained firmly oriented to the downside, with supply still heavily outweighing demand and suppliers scrambling to place excess tonnage. Bearish market sentiment was exemplified by a Trammo sale to OCP at $415/t c.fr Morocco, $20/t short of Tampa’s c.fr settlement for April and around $44/t down on February.

NextChem subsidiary KT Tech has been awarded a licensing contract for the implementation of NextChem’s proprietary NX AdWinMethanol® Zero technology for Pacifico Mexinol, an ultra-low carbon methanol facility near Los Mochis, Sinaloa, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, which will have a planned output in excess of 2.1 million t/a. Transition Industries LLC, based in Houston, Texas, is developing Pacifico Mexinol with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. When it initiates operation in 2028, Pacifico Mexinol is expected to be the largest single ultra-low carbon methanol facility in the world – producing approximately 350,000 t/a of green methanol and 1.8 million t/a of blue methanol annually from natural gas with carbon capture.The value of the licensing award is in the low tens of million euros, with the whole package estimated to be about e250 million, including basic engineering, proprietary and critical equipment supply, as well as assistance to commissioning, start-up and operation of the facility.

Clariant says that its MegaMax 900 methanol synthesis catalyst has been used in the successful startup of European Energy’s green methanol plant at Kasso, Denmark. The facility uses biogenic CO2 and green hydrogen to produce up to 42,000 t/a of green methanol. Clariant’s Applied Catalyst Technology (ACT) technical service team provided on-site support throughout the startup procedure, overseeing the catalyst loading, reduction, and startup. Clariant says that the catalyst is operating with excellent activity and stability despite the challenging conditions of CO2 -to-methanol conversion.

Energy company Mabanaft and HIF Global have signed a heads of agreement for the offtake of e-methanol from, HIF’s planned e-Fuels facilities, reinforcing their commitment to advancing carbon-reducing fuels for the shipping industry. The initial offtake would be of up to 100,000 t/a of e-methanol produced from renewable electricity and captured CO2 per year. As HIF Global moves forward with the development of its e-Fuels facilities, Mabanaft says that it will further explore demand for different methanol applications jointly with its customers.

Global gas demand has returned to growth after the supply shock of 2022-23, but geopolitical tensions and short supply in LNG markets.

The European Commission (EC) says it has begun tracking European imports of certain ethylene and ammonia products, to allow it to react quickly to level the playing field if the monitoring points to a surge of imports causing or threatening to cause injury to the EU industry. This surveillance has been put in place in response to evidence of a significant and potentially injurious increase in the EU market share of imports of the chemicals. It covers imports of copolymers of ethylene and alpha olefin, urea containing more than 45% (by weight) of nitrogen, and ammonium sulphate from all countries, and should remain in place for a period of three years.