Tag: Contract

Belarus sanctions, freight costs and strong demand are pushing MOP pricing to new heights, says Andy Hemphill, senior editor for potash and sulphuric acid at ICIS Fertilizers.

China’s private sector Shenghong Petrochemical refining complex is targeting a startup in late November, following the receipt of its first cargo of crude in October. The greenfield refining complex in the eastern Lianyungang petrochemical zone has a capacity of 16 million t/a, including a 320,000 bbl/d crude unit – the largest single stream CDU in China – and a 76,000 bbl/d naphtha reformer. Product capacities include 56,000 bbl/d of gasoline, 41,000 bbl/d of diesel and 32,000 bbl/d of jet fuel. Construction began in mid-2019, delayed from 2018 by late approval of its environmental impact assessment, but has been achieved within two months of the scheduled completion date in spite of the coronavirus pandemic. Shenghong Petrochemical is owned by Eastern Shenghong, a producer of petrochemical products and chemical fibres.

Rapidly escalating natural gas prices forced plant closures across Europe during September. Worst affected was the UK, where a fire at a cross-Channel electricity cable and low output from wind energy has, combined with low domestic storage capacity led to a surge in demand for gas for power stations and wholesale gas prices reached a record 350 pence per therm (equivalent to $46/ MMBtu) in October. On September 15th, CF Industries announced that it was halting operations at both its Billingham and Ince fertilizer plans due to high gas prices. Although ammonia prices have also risen, they have not kept pace with gas price rises, and there is a limit to what farmers could be expected to pay. CF CEO Anthony Will said: “$900 is the gas cost in a tonne of ammonia and the last trade in the ammonia market that was done was $700 a tonne”. As these plants supply most of the UK’s carbon dioxide for food and drink manufacture, the government said it would provide “limited financial support” to keep the Billingham plant operational, and that plant re-started on September 21st. Meanwhile, BASF closed its Antwerp and Ludwigshafen plants in Belgium and Germany due to what the company called “extremely challenging” economics. Fertiberia ceased production at its Palos de la Frontera site in Spain, and Puertellano remained down for scheduled maintenance. Yara shut 40% of its European ammonia production in September, and OCI partially closed its Geleen plant in the Netherlands. Achema in Lithuania decided against restarting its ammonia plant following maintenance in August, and OPZ in Ukraine shut one ammonia line at Odessa, with Ostchem and DniproAzot likely to follow. Borealis in Austria also reduced production.

An update on the latest in fertilizer ship loading, handling, bagging and blending, including new contracts, company news and advances in technology.

Comprimo has recently launched two new solutions to make the most of existing data and to improve customer’s operations and customer knowhow: Comprimo Insight – an intelligent sulphur plant dashboard, and Comprimo Immerse – a dynamic sulphur plant simulator. In this article, Comprimo goes into the details of how Comprimo Insight and Comprimo Immerse are being implemented for its customers.

We highlight the large-scale nitrogen projects that are currently under development across the globe – with a focus on ammonia and urea technology licensors and engineering contractors.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has awarded a $510 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Italy’s Saipem to expand production capacity at the Shah sour gas plant, as the UAE looks to increase its output of gas by 2030. The Optimum Shah Gas Expansion (OSGE) & Gas Gathering project has been awarded by ADNOC Sour Gas, a joint venture between ADNOC and US energy major Occidental. The contract will increase gas processing capacity at the Shah plant by 13% per cent to 1.45 bcf/d from 1.28 bcf/d by 2023 and supports ADNOC’s objective of enabling gas self-sufficiency for the UAE. The Shah gas plant currently meets 12% of the UAE’s total supply of natural gas, as well as producing 5% of the world’s elemental sulphur. The expansion will cumulatively represent a 45% increase on the plant’s original capacity of 1.0 bcf/d when it came on-stream in 2015.

We compare and contrast the 2020 financial performance of selected major fertilizer producers, following the publication of fourth-quarter results.

Ineos subsidiary Inovyn has announced the permanent closure of its ‘sulphur chemicals’ (mainly sulphuric acid) plant at its Runcorn site, and its withdrawal from the UK sulphur chemicals market. The company said in a statement that the decision follows a management review of the business in the light of recent events. Specifically, in October 2020, an unexpected interruption to the third-party power supply to the Runcorn site resulted in the plant being taken offline, and during restart, it was identified that a number of critical plant components had suffered significant damage. As a result, to ensure the safety and integrity of the plant it was taken back offline. Since then, in spite of significant effort and investment to rectify these issues, Inovyn says that it has become clear that it will not be possible to safely restart the plant for at least a further 18-24 months, and the company has decided to close the plant permanently.

Tecnimont has been awarded a $1.5 billion contract by Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council to carry out rehabilitation works at the Port Harcourt refinery in Rivers State, run by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC). The contract covers engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities for a full rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery complex, aimed at restoring the complex to a minimum of 90% of its 210,000 bbl/d nameplate capacity. Tecnimont says that the project will be delivered in phases from 24 and 32 months and the final stage will be completed in 44 months from the award date.