Category: North America

Following the completion of expansion work on the ultra-sour gas Shah field in May 2023, production has been ramped up. Occidental, which owns 40% of the Shah project and which operates the field in conjunction with ADONC Sour Gas, reported in July that it had achieved record output at Shah, with gross gas sales reaching 722 million scfd in Q2 2023 (equivalent to 1.1 billion scf/d of raw gas, which is 23% H2S and 10% CO 2 ). The expansion has taken processing capacity at Shah to 1.45 billion scf/d and forms part of the UAE’s plans to achieve gas self-sufficiency by the end of the decade. The expansion was conducted by Saipem, who were awarded a $510 million contract in 2021 to expand output from 1.3 billion scf/d to the current 1.45 billion scf/d. Work was completed two months ahead of schedule, according to Occidental.

CRU’s Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid 2023 Conference and Exhibition takes place at the Sheraton New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 6-8 November. Take part in this leading annual forum for the global sulphur and sulphuric acid community to learn, connect and do business. Hear from industry leaders and subject experts from around world and across the industry.

Adani Enterprises says that its new greenfield copper smelter at Mundra in Gujarat, being developed by its subsidiary Kutch Copper Ltd, will begin operations in March 2024. The $1.1 billion project will have an annual production capacity of 1 million t/a of copper once the second phase is complete, but the March 24 start-up will be for the first, 500,000 t/a phase. The plant will also produce 25 t/a of gold, 250 t/a of silver, and 1.5 million t/a of sulphuric acid and 250,000 t/a of phosphoric acid as by-products. India currently imports roughly two million t/a of sulphuric acid since the closure of the Vedanta smelter in Tamil Nadu.

Ammonia production at Billingham in Teesside looks set to end, bringing to a close a history of production that dates back almost a century.

Maire SpA subsidiary Tecnimont, together with Orascom Construction SAE, have been awarded a lump sum turn-key engineering procurement and construction contract for new nitric acid and ammonium nitrate plants by the Egyptian Chemical Industries Company (‘Kima’). The contract value is approximately $300 million, of which about $220 million relates to Tecnimont activities. Finalisation of the contract is subject to successful execution of the financing package. The scope of work includes mainly engineering, supply of all materials and equipment – to be performed by Tecnimont – as well as construction activities, to be carried out by Orascom Construction.

Yara International is to build a major new speciality fertilizer and biostimulant production plant near York.

Metso is launching an advanced sustainable battery black mass recycling process as part of its battery minerals technology offering, which covers concentration and hydrometallurgical processing as well as related services. Demand for battery minerals is increasing sharply with the ongoing transition to clean energy sources. An electric car battery weighs approximately 200 kg. Recycling of black mass from batteries with Metso’s process can reduce up to 60% of embedded carbon compared to use of virgin materials and enables the treatment of mechanically separated and shredded batteries for recovering battery raw materials like nickel, cobalt, and lithium, as well as manganese and copper.

Kazakhstan’s oil and condensate output increased by 7% from 1.79 million bbl/d to 1.92 million bbl/d in early June after sour gas reinjection operations resumed at the Kashagan offshore oil and gas development following a recent outage, according to the Kazkah Energy Ministry. Reinjection of sour gas into two wells resumed on 8th June, enabling operator the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) to boost oil and condensate production at a large artificial island in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea waters. Reinjection was paused on May 20th following the detection of sour gas during routine sampling and a subsequent integrity test. Kashagan normally produces about 300,000 barrels of oil per day. Kazakhstan expects Kashsgan to raise oil production this year to 18.2 million t/a from 12.7 million t/a in 2022.

Mining, metals and fertilizer business intelligence company CRU has launched a new low-emissions ammonia (LEA) price assessment in its Fertilizer Week price reporting service. The price takes a value-based approach, whereby a premium on the Northwest European ammonia price is calculated on an emissions-mitigated basis, and leverages CRU’s proprietary nitrogen asset emissions data combined with weekly European carbon prices to calculate the value of emissions mitigated. CRU says that it has leveraged its Emissions Analysis Tool to develop the premiums on an emissions-mitigated basis as opposed to a cost basis, allowing end-users to assess how the switch to LEA can deliver value to their business while contributing to their decarbonisation strategies. The Emissions Analysis Tool is a comprehensive asset-byasset emissions dataset for the nitrogen industry.

The first global review of phosphate rock resources since 2010 has reported that technically recoverable reserves should last for more than 300 years.