Category: Middle East

The Belarusian Potash Company (BPC) has agreed new annual potash supply contracts with India and China.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has unveiled plans to build Europe’s largest power-to-ammonia facility at the Danish port of Esbjerg, based on electricity from offshore wind turbines. The company said the plant will consist of 1GW of electrolysis capacity, capable of supplying sufficient hydrogen to produce 300,000 t/a of ammonia, and that the ammonia will be used as both as agricultural fertiliser and as fuel for the shipping industry. Excess heat generated in the process would be used to provide heating for around one third of local households in communities around the plant, to be sited on the west coast of Denmark. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding for the project with companies from both the agriculture and shipping sectors, including Danish Crown, Arla, DLG, Maersk and DFDS Seaways. CIP anticipates that it would cost approximately $1.2 billion to build the facility. They are currently seeking investors for the project and expect that the investment decision would be reached by 2023. The plant could enter commercial operations in 2026.

Storm Uri which blanketed the southern states of the US with snow, and led to widespread power outages in Texas, has had a major impact upon US Gulf Coast and Southern-Midwest refined products supply. Most Gulf Coast refineries were shut down or forced to operate at reduced rates. IHS Markit estimated that more than 5.2 million bbl/d of Gulf Coast capacity and 730,000 bbl/d in PADD 2 was impacted by the winter weather at its height, and close to 20% of lower 48 US natural gas production was shut-in in the first half of February. A drop in crude oil production of between 2.2 and 4 million bbl/d was estimated.

Copper major Freeport-McMoRan is reportedly on verge of finalising a $2.8 billion deal with China’s Tsingshan to build a copper smelter in Weda Bay, Indonesia. The Indonesian government said that the companies were aiming to conclude negotiations by the end of March. It also said that most of the financing will be borne by Tsingshan, with Freeport possibly only needing to provide funding for 7.5% of the total project cost. The smelter would have a copper concentrate input capacity of 2.4 million t/a.

The United States has imposed duties on Russian and Moroccan phosphate imports.

Johnson Matthey (JM) has secured a multiple licence for China’s Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group’s latest project to develop five of the largest single train methanol plants in the world. Located at Baofeng’s Ordos City complex in Inner Mongolia, the five plants each have a planned capacity 7,200 t/d. Under the agreement Johnson Matthey will be the licensor of all five plants and supplier of associated engineering, technical review, commissioning assistance, and catalyst. The plants will take synthesis gas as a feed and use JM radial steam raising converters in a patented series loop. Within the design, there is potential for 1-2% more feedstock efficiency over the life of the catalyst. Thanks to JM’s methanol loop synthesis technology, the plants will provide enhanced energy savings along with low OPEX, CAPEX and emissions. When complete, the plants will represent JM’s 13th operating license in China for a mega-scale plant (>5,500 t/d) and the fourth JM methanol design licensed by Ningxia Baofeng Energy.

Building on its long experience and leading position within global ammonia production, logistics and trade, Yara says that it aims to capture opportunities in green shipping, agriculture and industrial applications; a market expected to grow by 60% over the next two decades. A major first step includes plans to fully electrify its ammonia plant at Porsgrunn, Norway, with the potential to cut 800,000 t/a of CO 2 , equivalent to the emissions from 300,000 passenger cars.

Construction work has begun on a new hydrocracking complex for the Assiut refinery in Egypt, in the central Nile valley, according to TechnipFMC plc, who won the $1 billion engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the project. The contract involves construction of new processing units including a vacuum distillation unit, a diesel hydrocracking unit, a delayed coker unit, a distillate hydrotreating unit and a hydrogen production unit which will use TechnipFMC’s proprietary steam reforming technology.

Brimstone STS Ltd. today announced a new partnership with Sulphur Recovery Engineering Inc (SRE). The two companies say that this collaboration will bring together decades of experience and the latest technology in support of the sulphur recovery and gas treating industry worldwide.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have announced the ‘Next Gen Fertilizer Challenge’, a joint EPA-USDA partnership and competition to advance agricultural sustainability in the United States. The competition includes two challenges that seek proposals for new and existing fertilizer technologies to maintain or improve crop yields while reducing the impacts of fertilizers on the environment.