Magazine: Nitrogen+Syngas

At the time of writing this editorial, the World Economic Forum was having its usual annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos. Prior to this year’s meeting, as usual the WEF had produced its annual Global Risks Report to serve as a talking point for the meeting. While some of the risks were as usual political and economic, from proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the “retreat from multilateralism” to growing inequalities of wealth in the developed world and “domestic political polarisation”, for the first time in the organisation’s history, the top five global risks in the report ranked by likeliness – which looks at potential global pitfalls over the next 10 years – were environmental. Perhaps with the pictures of Australia’s bush fire season fresh in their minds, the 750 experts ranked extreme weather events as the most likely, but climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainability in agriculture all ranked highly.

Haldor Topsoe and Sasol have announced that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to jointly license their GTL technologies. For many years, the two companies have worked together on numerous GTL projects and technologies, and Topsoe’s Syn-COR™ syngas generation technology and Sasol’s Fischer-Tropsch technologies have been licensed for several world-scale GTL ventures. Under the new collaboration agreement, the companies will continue to offer these core technologies, but will now also provide Topsoe’s hydroprocessing and hydrogen technologies. This gives potential customers access to a single-point licensing offering that covers the entire value chain from gas feed to liquid fuels. As single-point licensors, Sasol and Topsoe will offer customers all necessary technology licenses for a complete GTL solution and in addition provide basic engineering, catalysts, and hardware.

Floor prices in nitrogen markets are set by marginal producers high on the cost curve, usually using higher cost feedstocks. Recently, lower coal prices in China and the cost of imported LNG have begun to change the dynamic between producers on the margins.

‘Green’ methanol means many things to different people. It encompasses low carbon emissions methanol manufacture at scale, recovery of material through waste gasification and conversion to methanol and power to liquid (e-fuel) methanol via electrochemistry and sometimes a combination of all of the above. Each route has a place in reducing the overall carbon footprint of production and subsequent use of methanol, driven by both governmental incentives or societal demand. In this article Andrew Fenwick of Johnson Matthey reviews the various routes to manufacture.

Dr MP Sukumaran Nair, former Secretary to the Chief Minister and Chairman of the Public Sector Restructuring and Audit Board for the Government of Kerala, provides an update on India’s plans to achieve self-sufficiency in urea production by 2022.

thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions (tkIS) offers and builds Power-to-X plants and can provide all processes of the value chain, from water electrolysis and CO2 recovery to green ammonia, green methanol and green SNG. Renewable methanol production, which combines the application of carbon capture and utilisation with chemical energy storage, is a particularly promising sustainable solution.

Alistair Wallace , Head of Fertilizer Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for nitrogen.

US agricultural demand is expected to pick up in 1Q 2020, and farm inventories are low.

Maire Tecnimont and its urea licensing subsidiary Stamicarbon celebrated the 10th anniversary of Tecnimont’s purchase of Stamicarbon from DSM at Limbricht Castle in the Netherlands. The event, attended by Stamicarbon employees and the management of both companies, was an opportunity for the companies to reflect on the past ten years, as well as future developments and opportunities. From Maire Tecnimont’s point of view, it has enabled them to become a leading technology provider for urea production, and strengthened the group’s identity as a major technology licensor and EPC contractor for fertilizer plants. Stamicarbon was able to broaden its value proposition thanks to effective synergies with the group’s sister companies, while leveraging Maire Tecnimont’s network to expand its international footprint.

CRU’s Nitrogen + Syngas conference and exhibition takes place this year at the World Forum, The Hague, in The Netherlands, from 17 to 19 February 2020.