Nitrogen+Syngas asked some of the industry’s leading EPC companies what they are doing to make construction sites safer around the world in pursuit of the goal for zero incident safety performance. Read on to find out what approaches have been taken by Maire Tecnimont Group, thyssenkrupp, Toyo Engineering Corporation and Saipem.
Many fertilizers plants are looking to reduce the overall maintenance costs of their critical heat exchangers. Barinder J. S. Ghai of Sandvik Materials Technology takes a look at the life cycle costs of tube materials for heat exchangers in ammonia plants.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) forward oil prices for May dropped into negative territory during mid-April, on fears of lack of storage capacity to deal with the excess production. Forward prices for June were also nosing to equally unprecedentedly low levels.Elsewhere, Brent Crude spot prices dropped to $20/bbl, a fall of $50/bbl from the start of 2020.
The Indonesian government’s decision to enforce the processing of more copper and nickel ores domestically rather than export them to China has led to the rapid development of domestic smelter capacity as well as nickel acid leaching projects.
Shell Global Solutions International BV (Shell) has awarded Worley two contracts for PT Pertamina EP Cepu’s (PEPC) new sulphuric acid plant in Indonesia. This plant is part of the Jambaran-Tiung Biru utilised gas field project for PEPC, which is a subsidiary of PT Pertamina-Indonesia’s state-owned energy company. Under the contracts, Worley will supply be supplying Chemetics’ cooled oxidation reactor (CORE) technology. This is the first time that CORE will be paired with Shell’s Cansolv SO2 capture technology. Worley gained the Chemetics technology as part of its Jacobs Energy, Chemicals and Resources acquisition last year. Cansolv controls the emissions and captures additional by-product value from the sulphur dioxide emitted from various refinery flue gas streams (such as cracking units, process heaters and boilers), sulphur plants and spent acid regeneration units. Sulphur dioxide can be recycled to the sulphur recovery unit to be produced as marketable sulphur or converted to sulphuric acid.
What are the limits for future single stream sulphuric acid plant capacities? H. Storch, C. Bartlett, and S. Mohsler of Outotec discuss design considerations for large capacity sulphuric acid plants with reference to the world’s largest acid plants built to date.
Tecnimont SpA has signed an EPC contract worth approximately e200 million with Gemlik Gübre Sanayii Anonim Sirketi for the construction of a new urea and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) solutions plant at Gemlik, 125 km south of Istanbul. The plant will have a capacity of 1,640 t/d of granular urea and 500 t/d of UAN, and will be based on Stamicarbon urea technology, a fully owned subsidiary of the Maire Tecnimont group. The scope of work includes engineering, supply of all equipment and materials and construction and erection works. Project completion is planned within about three years of the contract beginning.
Methanex has said that, in light of the uncertainty in the global economy from the Covid-19 pandemic, it will defer approximately $500 million of previously announced capital spending on its $1.4 billion Geismar 3 methanol project for up to 18 months. Geismar 3, which is intended to eventually produce 1.8 million t/a of methanol, will be placed on temporary “care and maintenance” for up to 18 months, enabling the company to complete the project when market conditions improve. Methanex says it will spend $100 million in Q1 2020 and a further $200 million from April 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021 on the project, the majority of which is spending that occurred or was committed during Q1 2020. This is approximately $500 million lower than the $800 million that was expected to be spent over that same period. Construction activity and procurement of non-critical equipment and bulk materials will be suspended until market conditions allow the Geismar 3 project to restart.
Three large-scale phosphoric acid plants constructed as part of the world-class Umm Wu’al project in Saudi Arabia are now fully operational. James Byrd of Worley (formerly Jacobs ECR) describes the execution of the project from basic engineering through to plant performance tests.
China’s copper industry is facing difficulties caused by the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Prolonged factory closures, particularly in Hubei province, at the centre of the outbreak, as well as neighbouring Guangdong and Zhejiang, also badly affected, have caused a slump in demand for copper domestically as copper fabricators remain on extended closure. However, smelters have resisted cutting production. Daye Nonferrous, based in Huangshi at the centre of coronavirus outbreak, continues to operate at 80% of its 600,000 t/a capacity for 1Q 2020, according to the company, in spite of quarantine and transport restrictions which have reduced truck shipments to the smelter – Daye is reportedly still able to receive copper concentrate shipments via the Yangtze River to Huangshi port.