Tag: Methanol

On February 27th, in a speech to the Bundestag, Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz described the events then unfolding as a “zeitenwende” – a historical turning point. He was speaking of German foreign and security policy, but it seems likely that Russia’s February 24th invasion of Ukraine may end up marking a break with the past in many different ways. Last issue’s Editorial was written when Russia’s ‘special military operation’ was still only a few days old, and the situation was still very fluid. Two months on, and for all of the uncertainties remaining, some glimpses of the way that things are changing are becoming clearer.

Yara and Mosaic shocked markets with a settlement of $1,625/t c.fr for April, up $490/t on March, and the highest ever price recorded at Tampa, as the removal of Russian and Ukrainian ammonia supply impacted global prices, and Baltic rates soared to $1,500/t. However, April saw some of the global dislocations caused by the Russian conflict begin to ease, while the high prices saw buyers in the US delay purchases, leading to the Tampa price falling back $200/t for May loadings.

The ammonia market, already seeing record pricing in the wake of the winter’s gas price squeeze, is braced for even higher pricing in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The impact upon gas prices has been most marked, with rates of over $65/MMBtu seen in European forward pricing as the threat of a cessation of Russian gas exports loomed. This will undoubtedly lead to widespread idling of ammonia capacity in Europe.

INEOS says that it is aiming to forward its plans for a ‘net zero’ future for its Grangemouth site in Scotland by inviting major engineering design contractors to tender for the next stage of the design of a world scale carbon capture enabled hydrogen plant and associated infrastructure.

The CRU Nitrogen + Syngas Conference returns to Berlin for a live event from 28-30 March 2022. The conference will be run as a hybrid event giving participants the option to attend live in-person or online via the virtual platform.

New innovations, services and latest technologies to improve the operation and reliability of steam methane reformers from AMETEK Land, Kontrolltechnik, BD Energy Systems, Koch Engineered Solutions, and Quest integrity.

Ricardo L. Sepulveda of PegasusTSI reviews options to decrease the CO2 footprint of a fertilizer industrial complex and illustrates the technical and economic feasibility of utilising clean energy from a sulphuric acid plant in a fertilizer complex to produce green hydrogen, which in turn can be used to produce green methanol or green ammonia.

The production of syngas from hydrocarbon feedstock uses a number of catalytic steps to increase efficiency and maximise conversion while minimising energy consumption. In this article we report on the latest developments in water gas shift catalysis from Johnson Matthey, Clariant and Topsoe, and shift converter design from Casale.

As a quick glance through the Index of last year’s articles and news items in this issue of the magazine will amply demonstrate, 2021 was a year full of project announcements for low carbon ammonia and methanol projects of all hues; blue, green, turquoise and many other shades besides. Market analysts CRU said in December that they calculated that there have been a total of 124 million t/a of low carbon ammonia projects announced, 80 million t/a of which came in 2021 alone, equivalent to 55% of current ammonia capacity. These range from tentative pilot plants that are fully costed and often with government grants already secured to blue sky visions of vast electrolysis hubs in the deserts of Arabia with timescales towards the end of the decade – it’s often the case that the longer the proposed timescale, the less likely a project is to happen.

The ammonia market has entered 2022 looking very different to last year, with early January Pivdenny prices $875/t higher on a mid-point basis than they were at the start of 2021, and the likelihood of further gains ahead.