MOSCOW (MRC) -- Air Products will invest around USD2-billion to build, own and operate a new coal-to-methanol production facility in Bengalon, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, and has agreed to supply methanol to Bakrie Capital Indonesia and Ithaca Resources, according to Apic-online.
The plant, which will include Air Product's proprietary Syngas Solutions dry-feed gasifier, will enable the production of nearly 2-million t/y of methanol utilizing technology from Haldor Topsoe. Start-up is expected in 2024.
Under a long-term on-site contract, Bakrie and Ithaca will supply coal feedstock and have committed to offtake the methanol production for sale within Indonesia.
"As Southeast Asia's largest economy, Indonesia is committed to reduce its energy imports and efficiently convert abundant coal resources into high-value products," said Seifi Ghasemi, chairman, president and chief executive of Air Products.
"We are proud to have been awarded another world-scale gasification project, where we will deploy our capital, technology and operational expertise to help Indonesia meet these important goals."
As MRC wrote earlier, in December 2014, SIBUR-Khimprom (a subsidiary of SIBUR Holding) and Air Products entered into an agreement to build a new air separation unit in Perm and to supply the facility with locally produced gases. The unit came on-stream in 2016. After the commissioning Air Products will supply industrial gases for SIBUR-Khimprom over the next 20 years.
Besides, we remind that in September 2019, SIBUR, the largest petrochemical comples in Russia and Eastern Europe, and BASF, Geman petrochemical major, agreed to closely cooperate on sustainable development to share their best practices.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.
MRC