Category: Latin America

Veolia says that its subsidiary Veolia North America has signed an agreement for the divestment of Veolia North America Regeneration Services, which includes its sulphuric acid and hydrofluoric acid regeneration activities for refineries, to private equity firm American Industrial Partners for $620 million. These activities represented revenues of around $350 million in 2023. The financial closure of the transaction is expected soon. Veolia’s Sulphuric Acid Regeneration Business includes its sulphuric acid and potassium hydroxide regeneration, as well as sulphur gas recovery, and sulphur-based products production businesses.

Brazilian phosphate producer Galvani says that it has begun work on its major phosphate expansion in Bahia state, including a new production plant at Ceará, in partnership with Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB). The company aims to reduce Brazil’s northern and northeastern regions’ reliance on imported fertilizers. The first phase includes $133 million of investment, including $76 million for new phosphate mining at Irecê, and $38 million for Luís Eduardo Magalhães factory, also in Bahia. This expansion will take capacity from 600,000 t/a to 1.2 million t/a by 2026. The expansion at Luís Eduardo Industrial Complex includes expansion of sulphuric acid capacity from 165,000 t/a to 250,000 t/a.

Pres-Vac Engineering's innovative high-velocity methanol valves offers shipbuilders unique options in creating more efficient and compliant dual-fuel systems.

In a major milestone, Yara International has officially opened its renewable hydrogen plant at Herøya Industrial Park, Porsgrunn, Norway.

OCP Group and Fortescue subsidiary Fortescue Energy have announced a 50:50 joint venture (JV) to supply green hydrogen, ammonia and fertilizers to Morocco, Europe and international markets.

The board of Petrobras has approved the resumption of operations at the company’s Araucária Nitrogenados SA (ANSA) site at Araucaria, Parana state. The plant, which has the capacity to produce 475,000 t/a of ammonia and 720,000 t/a of urea, has been idled 2020.

Qatar construction services company UCC Holding has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kazakh Ministry of Energy for a gas treatment plant at the Kashagan field with a capacity of 6 billion cubic meters as part of the Phase 2B expansion. The memorandum was signed by Minister of Energy Almassadam Satkaliyev and Mohamed Moutaz Al Khayyat, chairman of UCC Holding.

In January, Kazakh uranium producer Kazatomprom warned of potential adjustments to its 2024 uranium production due to challenges with sulphuric acid availability and construction delays at new uranium mining operations. In a statement the company said that its projected uranium output for 2024 will be between 21,000 t/a and 22,500 t/d U3 O8 , around 20% lower than the amount it had been expecting to be able to mine. Kazatomprom’s uranium output was 21,100 t/a U3O8 in 2023, down 1% on 2022 figures, with output flat during 4Q 2023. While it said it had sufficient inventory in stock to cover contracted deliveries in 2024, there could be problems for 2025 deliveries.

Freeport Indonesia has inaugurated the $250 million expansion at its PT Smelting copper smelter in Gresik, East Java, in a ceremony attended by Indonesian president Joko Widodo. Smelting, a joint venture between Freeport McMoRan and Mitsubishi Materials, has increased copper concentrate processing capacity to 1.3 million t/a, up from the previous figure of 1.0 million t/a, with copper cathode production of 300,000 t/a.

US domestic oil production has surged during 2023, reaching 13.3 million bbl/d in December, a record not just for the US but for any single country’s oil production. Adding in natural gas liquids and biofuels takes overall liquids production to 21.4 million bbl/d. Exports are also running at record levels, around 6 million bbl/d. This is a remarkable turnaround from 2008, when production was less then 5 million bbl/d and exports essentially zero. Furthermore, non-OPEC production is continuing to expand, with Brazil reaching 3.4 million bbl/d of oil production and 4.2 million bbl/d of liquids, and Canada producing 4.8 million bbl/d of crude and 5.7 million bbl/d of total liquids, keeping oil prices moderated in spite of OPEC+ production cuts. Global oil production is expected to reach a record level in 2024, with non-OPEC+ liquids growth projected to increase by 2.7 million bbl/d, far more than demand growth of 1.6 million bbl/d. n